Pelosi's Hypocrisy: Failure to lead by example.

[piper17 1]

EXCLUSIVE: Pelosi paid husband with PAC funds
$99,000 for rent, utilities, accounting fees

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.

"Democrats are committed to reforming the way Washington does business," Mrs. Pelosi said in a press release at the time. "Congressman [Adam] Schiff's bill will help us accomplish that goal by increasing transparency in election campaigns and preventing the misuse of funds."

Last week, Mrs. Pelosi's office said the payments to her husband's firm were perfectly legal, insisting she is compensating her husband at fair market value for the work his firm has performed for the PAC. But ethical watchdogs said the arrangement sends the wrong message.

"It's problematic," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonprofit ethics and watchdog group. "From what I understand, Mr. Pelosi doesn't need the money, but this isn't the issue. ... As speaker of the House, it sends the wrong message. She shouldn't be putting family members on the payroll."

A senior adviser to Mrs. Pelosi described the payments to FLS as "business expenses."

"She's followed all the appropriate rules and regulations in terms of records and paperwork," said Brendan Daly, Mrs. Pelosi's spokesman. "When [former treasurer] Leo McCarthy became ill, she thought that it was best that that firm did the accounting and she's paid fair market value in San Francisco."

Between 1999 and 2006, FLS collected $500 per month to cover rent, utilities and equipment for the leadership PAC, according to the FEC records. The PAC's address is listed as a personal mailbox in San Francisco, across the street from FLS's Montgomery Street office building, but the rent payments went to an office space.

In early 2007, the PAC's treasurer, Leo T. McCarthy, former Democratic speaker of the state assembly and lieutenant governor in California, died. Mr. Pelosi took over as treasurer and his company's PAC payouts rose.

At that point, FLS started charging the PAC $24,000 per year for accounting work. In January 2008, the PAC's rent - paid to FLS - also quadrupled from $500 to $2,000 per month.


Katie Falkenberg/The Washington Times PARTNERSHIP: Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul F. Pelosi, was by her side at a Democratic event in 2006.

Mr. McCarthy, the previous treasurer, had done the work as a volunteer, according to FEC documents and Jennifer Crider, a senior adviser to Mrs. Pelosi and spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. She said FLS' accounting fees are in line with costs for other PACs.

The jump in rent was an adjustment to reflect San Francisco's pricey real estate market, Miss Crider said. The rent was adjusted to $1,250 per month, with $750 in back rent to reflect that the rent should have been increased in mid-2007. This was the first increase since the PAC was established in mid-1999, records show.

Over the first six months of 2008, FLS was the largest vendor for Mrs. Pelosi's PAC. Brian Wolff, a political consultant, is the second-largest vendor, bringing in $22,500 this year.

FLS' payments represent 11 percent of the $213,900 the PAC raised over the first half of this year, according to the FEC documents.

PACs, which are designed to help politicians contribute to other candidates and build influence with colleagues, operate under lighter restrictions than traditional campaign committees.

Meredith McGehee, policy director at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, said putting family members on a PAC payroll is bound to raise questions and, in some cases, allow for abuse.

"The reality is that under the current system, PACs are rife with self-dealing transactions," she said. "The laws and regulations could and should be strengthened.

"There is a point now that you're starting to talk about real money," she said of Mrs. Pelosi's PAC. "This is not just a mom-and-pop operation and any self-dealing transaction by a member of Congress is going to get scrutiny, particularly with large amounts of money and prominent members."

It is illegal for members of Congress to hire family members to work on their official staff, but hiring relatives to work on a campaign or PAC is legal.

To be sure, many political action committees employ or work with family businesses. Last year, CREW found that 19 members of Congress used campaign committees or PACs to purchase services from a family member between 2002 and 2006.

Mrs. Pelosi's PACs have been in trouble before. In 2004, one of her political action committees, Team Majority, was fined $21,000 by the FEC for accepting donations over federal limits. It was one of two PACs she operated at the same time. The Team Majority PAC was closed shortly after the fine was levied.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

[TheBachelor 5]

Gee, with the slew of liberals here, I'd expect some attempt at an excuse by now....

There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

[funjumper101 15]

Do you have any idea how much Pelosi and her husband are worth?

A hundred thou over many years is totally chump change when you have that much $$ on hand.

Mudslinging sucks. Do you have anything of substance to offer?

[rushmc 23]

Quote

Do you have any idea how much Pelosi and her husband are worth?

A hundred thou over many years is totally chump change when you have that much $$ on hand.

Mudslinging sucks. Do you have anything of substance to offer?

So, because of your explination, doing something that is illegal is OK?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[funjumper101 15]

Quote

Quote

Do you have any idea how much Pelosi and her husband are worth?

A hundred thou over many years is totally chump change when you have that much $$ on hand.

Mudslinging sucks. Do you have anything of substance to offer?

So, because of your explination, doing something that is illegal is OK?

Do all righties have shit for brains?

It seems so. Try thinking rationally for just a few moments.

I highly doubt the truthfulness of the information presented. It is extremely unlikely that Pelosi would engage in a coordinated conspiracy to extract such a small amount of money from the PAC. She and her husband don't need the money...

Sounds to me like typical righty mudslinging. A small fact surrounded by a boatload of bullshit. Par for the course for the righty smear machine.

[FallingOsh 0]

Quote

Do all righties have shit for brains?

It seems so. Try thinking rationally for just a few moments.

I highly doubt the truthfulness of the information presented. It is extremely unlikely that Pelosi would engage in a coordinated conspiracy to extract such a small amount of money from the PAC. She and her husband don't need the money...

Sounds to me like typical righty mudslinging. A small fact surrounded by a boatload of bullshit. Par for the course for the righty smear machine.

Yes, the Republicans made her break the law. It's the Republicans' fault she's being confronted. It's the Republican smear machine that secretly gave this money to her husband in an elaborate frame. But... she's a democrat so "it's only $100,000 a year" is a perfectly valid excuse for breaking the fucking law.

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Stay positive and love your life.

[headoverheels 333]

It may be marginally legit, but I have no use for Pelosi, or for Boxer either. How these pathetic candidates got elected, I don't know. I generally vote D (maybe 80% of the time), but certainly have never voted for either of these two. Ugh.

[airdvr 210]

As far as I can tell she hasn't broken any laws...she's just an asshat for doing what she said she would never do.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[piper17 1]

...which is the point of my post of this newspaper piece. She claims she wants reform but goes ahead and engages in the very practice about which she complains.

Leaders are supposed to lead by example...something Pelosi doesn't, apparently, understand. Her actions make it appear that she thinks that it is okay for her to do this but not for others. Hypocrisy.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling