by _TrumpTrainConductor
We’ve all heard the story. Feinstein has had a driver for 20+ years and that driver was recently outed as a Chinese spy. This got me, and many other conspiratorial minds, thinking about how deep the rabbit hole goes on this one?
I heard on the Radio about Diane Feinstein’s husband’s ties to China, and how they were enriching themselves on Chinese trade. I had no idea it had been reported on as far back as 1997 – coincidentally, 21 years before the 20+ year driver was outed as a Chinese spy.
Here are some articles with excerpts and some contain my thoughts on the matter. All lines quoted from the article are in quote format here on reddit.
March 28, 1997 (LA Times) – articles.latimes.com/1997-03-28/news/mn-43046_1_china-connections
WASHINGTON — On Capitol Hill, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has emerged as one of the staunchest proponents of closer U.S. relations with China, fighting for permanent most-favored-nation trading status for Beijing.
At the same time, far from the spotlight, Feinstein’s husband, Richard C. Blum, has expanded his private business interests in China–to the point that his firm is now a prominent investor inside the communist nation.
For years, Feinstein and Blum have insisted that they maintained a solid “firewall” between her role as an influential foreign policy player and his career as a private investor overseas.
But such closely coinciding interests are highly unusual for major figures in public life in Washington. And now, as controversy heats up over improper foreign influence in the U.S. political process, the effectiveness of the firewall between those interests could be called into question.
…
In 1992, when Feinstein entered the Senate, Blum’s interests in China amounted to one project worth less than $500,000, according to her financial disclosure reports. But since then, his financial activities in the country have increased.
In the last year, a Blum investment firm paid $23 million for a stake in a Chinese government-owned steel enterprise and acquired sizable interests in the leading producers of soybean milk and candy in China. Blum’s firm, Newbridge Capital Ltd., received an important boost from a $10-million investment by the International Finance Corp., an arm of the World Bank. Experts said that IFC backing typically confers legitimacy and can help attract other investors.
There is a treasure trove of information in this article [above] – and its kind of sneakily 3 pages long – you have to hit the “next page” button at the bottom.
Sunday, October 22, 2000 (SF Gate) – www.sfgate.com/news/article/Husband-invested-in-China-as-Feinstein-pushed-3051244.php
An investment fund backed by the husband of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinste in pumped millions of dollars into firms doing business in China while Feinstein was boosting expanded trade between China and the United States, The Examiner has learned.
Feinstein has denied that her husband, San Francisco financier Richard C. Blum, has investments in China.
In May, before she voted for a measure that normalized trade with China, she said through a spokesman that Blum had divested of his last holdings in mainland China in 1999.
…
The firm is Newbridge Capital, a joint venture between Richard C. Blum & Associates and another firm called Texas Pacific Group. It maintains an office in Shanghai for an affiliate called Newbridge Asia, public records show.
And in the past two years, the firm has pumped more than $400 million in U.S. venture capital into East Asian businesses in hopes of profiting from the region’s rebounding economy.
At least $90 million of that – perhaps more – was invested in companies whose profits are pegged to the burgeoning mainland China market, according to the companies themselves.
…
Feinstein has advocated closer relations and expanded trade with China. But her career has been
dogged by allegations that her husband has sought to trade on his wife’s official position to enhance his prospects as an international investment banker.
Feinstein has adamantly denied a conflict of interest, saying she had erected a “firewall” between her office and her husband’s career. In 1997, Blum said he was donating profits from his China investments to charity to further defuse conflict concerns.
In May, when Rep. Tom Campbell, Feinstein’s Republican opponent in the November election, sought to make Blum’s China investments an issue, Feinstein responded through a spokesman by saying that Blum no longer had investments in China.
And more recently, The Federalist provided this write up, which combines the sources I’ve mentioned, with many others, for a very detailed, in depth, and seemingly accurate history of Feinstein/Blum and China, and how deep the ties actually go: thefederalist.com/2018/08/08/sen-dianne-feinsteins-ties-china-go-way-deeper-alleged-office-spy/
So, not only do we have a politician enriching herself/her family over the course of 30+ years, we have a politician, in any capacity, in power for 30+ years. This is one of the biggest problems in the USGOV – We need Term Limits now. And we need to cut out these slime bag dealings with foreign nations – where scummy politicians end up making a ton of money off of the backs of the US Taxpayers.
BONUS: Feinstein’s Net Worth is $80M today. Why? What has she produced to be worth that much money? Pelosi is worth $120M. Why? What product or service has she EVER produced? I will be doing a write up on Pelosi next.