Sen. Feinstein Gets Rich

Seems that Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) had a nice little spot on the Senate Military Construction subcommittee.

And her husband owned a decent chunk of Perini Construction.

And Perini did a lot of DoD work (!!!!)

And she saw that it was good, and sold the stock in Perini:

Public records show Blum's [Feinstein's hubby] company paid $4 a share for controlling interest in Perini, and later sold about three million shares for $23.75 each.

The report also showed URS' military construction work in 2000 was only $24 million, but the next year, when Feinstein took over as MILCON chair, military construction earned URS $185 million. Additionally, its military construction architectural and engineering revenue rose from $108,000 in 2000 to $142 million in 2001, a thousand-fold increase.

In late 2005, Blum sold 5.5 million URS shares, worth $220 million, the report said.

All as a result of excellent management and a terrific sales effort?

Maybe. But then there's this:

...Michael R. Klein, an adviser to Feinstein and business partner with Blum, said that starting in 1997 he routinely told Feinstein about federal projects coming before her in which Perini had a stake, in order for her to avoid those votes and as such, a conflict of interest.

However, instead of withholding a vote, she did act on those pieces of legislation, Byrne reported. Ultimately, "the Congressional Record shows that as chairperson and ranking member of MILCON, Feinstein was often involved in supervising the legislative details of military construction projects that directly affected Blum's defense-contracting firms," Byrne's report said.

Just co-incidence. Sen. Feinstein is not the first US Senator whose net worth increased remarkably while 'serving' the country. And she won't be the last.

But it's all right, because "it's for the children." HER children.