Commentary
Partisanship trumps ethics: The Feinstein family of war-profiteers, part two
By Joshua Frank
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Mar 1, 2006, 00:50

Senator Dianne Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum, could well be called the Democratic Daddy War Bucks. He’s scored bundles from war contracts. He has recently purchased a $16.5 million crib in San Francisco and along with his wife has handed hundreds of thousands of dollars over to fellow Democrats.

Since the 2000 election cycle, Blum has contributed over $75,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Committee, and thousands more to individual Democratic senatorial campaigns including John Kerry, Robert Byrd, Joe Lieberman, Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer.

Richard Blum’s history as an entrepreneur began at the ripe age of 23 when he began working for the San Francisco brokerage firm Sutro & Company. Blum quickly climbed the ranks and became a partner by the age of 30. According the San Francisco Chronicle, “Blum proved that he had an eye for fixer-upper properties when he led a partnership that acquired the struggling Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for $8 million -- then sold it to Mattel Inc. four years later for $40 million.”

In 1975, Blum went out on his own and formed a brokerage agency. Today Blum’s lofty firm, Blum Capital, holds positions is more than 20 companies, including real estate giants, credit bureaus, and yes, even military contractors.

Blum sees himself as an altruistic capitalist. Claims one of his ex-employees, “He likes to go after companies that are down and out, and bring their stock back to life. He thinks he doing good.” Blum shares a large stake in Perini, a civil construction company that is happily employed in Iraq and Afghanistan. But not all of Blum’s war-profits come from Perini. In 1975, his venture capital firm went after fledging construction and design company URS, when the business was about to be bought out by another corporation.

Since then Blum has increased his stock in URS, capitalizing on its recent military contracts. Unlike Blum’s dabbling with Barnum & Bailey, his current profits aren’t so safe for child consumption.

Here are the basics to date: Blum currently holds over 111,000 shares of stock in URS Corporation, which is now one of the top defense contractors in the United States. Blum is an acting director of URS, which bought EG&G, a leading provider of technical services and management to the U.S. military, from The Carlyle Group in 2002. Carlyle’s trusty advisors include former President George Bush Sr., James Baker III and ex-SEC Commissioner Arthur Levitt, among other prominent neoconservatives and Washington powerbrokers.

URS and Blum have since banked on the Iraq war, scoring a $600 million contract through EG&G. As a result URS has seen its stock price more than triple. Blum has cashed in over $2 million on this venture alone and another $100 million for his investment firm.

“As part of EG&G's sale price,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle, “Carlyle acquired a 21.74 percent stake in URS -- second only to the 23.7 percent of shares controlled by Blum Capital.”

The Carlyle Group has long been accused of exploiting its political connections to turn a profit. And if Carlyle can come under the microscope for its government ties and war profiteering, as it did in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9-11, than surely Blum’s URS ought to be subject to the same scrutiny.

Owen Blicksilver, Blum’s spokesman, claims his boss and Senator Feinstein have never talked shop at home in their gated mansion. “Mr. Blum and Sen. Feinstein have never had any discussions about outsourcing, government contracts or URS," Blicksilver said.

If this were a Republican senator's spouse scoring bundles off the spoils of war and passing it along to fellow Republicans, the liberals would be up in arms. But since Senator Dianne Feinstein is a leading Democrat -- mum's the word.

Partisanship trumps ethics.