Vegas
04-02-2007, 10:45 AM
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200704/POL20070402a.html
Government watchdog groups want more answers as to why Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) stepped down from a military appropriations subcommittee at a time questions were being asked billions of dollars in federal defense contracts going to her husband's companies.
Feinstein resigned her post as chairwoman of the Senate Subcommittee on Military Construction Appropriations last week.
The decision came less than two months after Metro Newspapers, a group of alternative weekly papers in northern California, detailed the number of defense contracts awarded to Perini Corp. and URS Corp., both of which her husband, Richard C. Blum, has ownership, according to the newspapers.
The investigation was partially funded by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute, a non-profit organization affiliated with the liberal magazine The Nation.
"This was a critique from the left," Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest group, told Cybercast News Service. "These were left-leaning papers. The fact that she stepped down from the committee lends credibility to the charges."
Fitton said this is something Judicial Watch wanted to further investigate, possibly by seeking public documents on the matter and by asking the Senate Ethics Committee to look into the matter for a possible conflict of interest on Feinstein's part.
Government watchdog groups want more answers as to why Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) stepped down from a military appropriations subcommittee at a time questions were being asked billions of dollars in federal defense contracts going to her husband's companies.
Feinstein resigned her post as chairwoman of the Senate Subcommittee on Military Construction Appropriations last week.
The decision came less than two months after Metro Newspapers, a group of alternative weekly papers in northern California, detailed the number of defense contracts awarded to Perini Corp. and URS Corp., both of which her husband, Richard C. Blum, has ownership, according to the newspapers.
The investigation was partially funded by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute, a non-profit organization affiliated with the liberal magazine The Nation.
"This was a critique from the left," Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest group, told Cybercast News Service. "These were left-leaning papers. The fact that she stepped down from the committee lends credibility to the charges."
Fitton said this is something Judicial Watch wanted to further investigate, possibly by seeking public documents on the matter and by asking the Senate Ethics Committee to look into the matter for a possible conflict of interest on Feinstein's part.