Pelosi Paid Husband with PAC funds
October 1st, 2008 at 08:16am Matt Margolis
The Washington Times has the exclusive:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has directed nearly $100,000 from her political action committee to her husband’s real estate and investment firm over the past decade, a practice of paying a spouse with political donations that she supported banning last year.
Financial Leasing Services Inc. (FLS), owned by Paul F. Pelosi, has received $99,000 in rent, utilities and accounting fees from the speaker’s “PAC to the Future” over the PAC’s nine-year history.
The payments have quadrupled since Mr. Pelosi took over as treasurer of his wife’s committee in 2007, Federal Election Commission records show. FLS is on track to take in $48,000 in payments this year alone - eight times as much as it received annually from 2000 to 2005, when the committee was run by another treasurer.
Lawmakers’ frequent use of campaign donations to pay relatives emerged as an issue in the 2006 election campaigns, when the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal gave Democrats fodder to criticize Republicans such as former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas and Rep. John T. Doolittle of California for putting their wives on their campaign and PAC payrolls for fundraising work.
Last year, Mrs. Pelosi supported a bill that would have banned members of Congress from putting spouses on their campaign staffs. The bill - which passed the House in a voice vote but did not get out of a Senate committee - banned not only direct payments by congressional campaign committees and PACs to spouses for services including consulting and fundraising, but also “indirect compensation,” such as payments to companies that employ spouses.
This is not the first time Pelosi has been corrupt with her political action committees. She was previously found guilty by the FEC for running two similar PACs (one of them being PAC to the Future) with the intention of raising twice as much money to give to Democrats. It was funds from those PACs with which she bought loyalty in her bid to become Minority Leader in the House after Dick Gephardt’s retirement.
Pelosi earlier election law violations were detail in Caucus Of Corruption, written by Mark and myself. Looks like Nancy is still up to her old corrupt ways. No suprise there. The question is, will House Republicans let this fade away or will they do something about it?
Entry Filed under: Corruption
15 Comments
1. js | October 1st, 2008 at 9:06 am
not a lot of change going on there…
2. neocon | October 1st, 2008 at 9:17 am
Didn’t she say she was going to preside over the most ethical congress ever?
What happened?
3. hermie | October 1st, 2008 at 9:25 am
Silly neocon…
That’s only for Republicans. (Unless they vote Nancy’s way, then she’ll overlook it.)
4. js | October 1st, 2008 at 9:54 am
im sure that if you dig a little deeper you can find cousins and ants and nephews and sisters and brothers and her own children on the bandwagon…
does that create an appearance of impropriety…dang right it does…but its ok…she runs the lawmakers…nobody can do an end run around her so its legal (?)….
5. William of Orange | October 1st, 2008 at 10:06 am
Tangentially, remember that sites like this, LGF, Instapundit, Powerline, etc. handed the MSM a big, fat turd back in 2004 (a la the deconstruction of the fraud perpetrated by CBS on Bush’s term in the TNG) and Kerry couldn’t get any traction like McCain can’t seem to now — which is why the MSM is in such lockstep during this cycle.
If Obama is elected, gradually his luster will wear off with the MSM and his follies will be reported in a more accurate light helped along by the overwhelming crush of the blogosphere. Once that occurs, Pelosi and Reid and Dodd and that coterie of fools will be targets of journalism who will tire of writing on the glorification of their glorious Democrat leadership and looking for a “new theme” to their pieces.
As an example, look at what they did to their beloved Clintons just this past year.
6. Retired Spook | October 1st, 2008 at 10:25 am
Perhaps we could get the Bush Justice Department team that has so successfully prosecuted Congressman William -$90,000-bribe-money-in-the-freezer-Jefferson to look into this.
7. hermie | October 1st, 2008 at 10:50 am
William, the MSM will never go against the Obamamessiah. They have too much invested in him.
They expect that he will reward them by imposing the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ and turning control of the Internet over to that bastion of free speech, the UN. They are counting on him winning so they can get back their monopoly over what is considered’ news’, and who is defined as a ‘journalist’.
The TANG memo has never been admitted by CBS to be a forgery. They have swept their shoddy ‘journalism’ under the rug as if it never happened.
8. Damnright | October 1st, 2008 at 10:58 am
Big deal! Except for the Times, Drudge and a few conservative blogs this will never see the light of day.
Spittin in the wind.
9. Retired Spook | October 1st, 2008 at 11:19 am
Damnright, how about you either contribute something positive or get lost. You remind me of this guy.
10. Damnright | October 1st, 2008 at 11:30 am
Spook,
I’m just the voice reason here, you think we can win and your making a difference? I’m just showing that the average voter will not see anything bad about Obama.
How you win against that?
11. hermie | October 1st, 2008 at 11:34 am
By having to spread the word to as many people as you know or meet.
It’s no substitute for perky Katie Couric, but would your friends and neighbors believe her over you?
12. Damnright | October 1st, 2008 at 11:38 am
I live in NY, My vote is meaningless every 4 years anyway. The last time it meant anything was in ‘84.
13. Observer20 | October 1st, 2008 at 4:15 pm
hermie,
I think that, should the Democrats be successful and win the White House and retain their majority in Congress, the love affair the MSM has with prosecuting the Republicans and ignoring the faults of the Democrats will wear off eventually. There’s only so long one can blame the Republicans before it gets predictable and boring and viewers stop watching. They’re going to have to start reporting about Obama’s scandals some time, if for no other reason than to keep people watching. And when that time comes I think many Obama supporters will be in for a bad case of shock and denial.
The pendulum can only stay on one side for so long. That does not mean we should underestimate our own role in this situation. Even if we feel nobody is listening, we should never stop trying to find the truth and root out hypocrisy. It’s the right thing to do.
14. William of Orange | October 1st, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Observer20 writes:
“The pendulum can only stay on one side for so long. That does not mean we should underestimate our own role in this situation. Even if we feel nobody is listening, we should never stop trying to find the truth and root out hypocrisy. It’s the right thing to do.”
Observer20: It’s going to be a lot more serious than that. I know I keep harping on this, but the last time we had a vapid, ineffective president with a democrat congress and a public upset with the Republicans was in 1976 and we all know what happened four years later..
.and that was without the internet and the blogosphere!
Besides, crap like this got old the then and will really wear on those of us in the middle just trying to earn a living and make our mortgage payments.
..cliche alert: it’s always darkest before the dawn!
15. phnx | October 1st, 2008 at 8:12 pm
“I live in NY, My vote is meaningless every 4 years anyway. The last time it meant anything was in ‘84.” Damnright
Want to make it count? Travel to Ohio this week, register and vote. Apparently during this special week, which must be named “Ohio Voter Fraud Week”, you can register without any proof of residence or identity. Your vote will be held and counted along with all the others on election day. Since there are not enough human resources to check all the votes…your will be counted.
This is the Obama get out the vote strategy for Ohio.