Nancy Pelosi Denounces Corruption: She Might Want to Look at Herself

After failing to prove their Russia-Trump hoax after more than two years, the Democrats and their media cohorts sought a “second bite of the apple” to overthrow a duly elected President of the United States. A former federal law enforcement official, Anthony Pellegrino, told the Conservative Base he wished Trump had moved quicker in “draining the Washington, D.C. Swamp.”

“At the heart of the corruption problem in Washington is a sense of entitlement. Politicians believe laws and rules (even the U.S. Constitution) apply to the rest of us but not to [Democrats] holding public office,” according to officials with one of America’s premier government watchdog groups.

A perfect example is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and her excessive use of military aircraft to travel.

When Chris Farrell, Chief Investigator for Judicial Watch obtained documents from the Pentagon in 2009, they showed that Mrs. Pelosi had treated the Air Force as if it was one of her perks: her own personal airline.

The Pelosi documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), include internal Pentagon email correspondence describing attempts by Pentagon staff to accommodate Pelosi’s numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker’s last minute changes and cancellations.

Pelosi also appears to have lied in 2009 when she stated she was never briefed about the CIA’s use of the waterboarding technique during terrorism investigations. The CIA produced a report documenting a briefing with Pelosi on September 4, 2002, that proves otherwise.

Judicial Watch also obtained documents, including a CIA Inspector General report, which further confirmed that Congress was fully briefed on the enhanced interrogation techniques. Not only did Pelosi lie about not being briefed on waterboarding, she was Gung-Ho about prosecuting members of the CIA and other intelligence agencies who used waterboarding to elicit information from known terrorists.

Besides Nancy Pelosi’s misuse of military resources there is also her hypocritical politics that is ignored by the news media. Pelosi is an owner of a profitable Napa Valley vineyard which is “staffed” by illegal aliens who are paid low wages.

According to Peter Schweizer in his best-selling expose of liberal-left hypocrisy, “Do As I Say (Not As I Do),” part of the fortune of this defender of the working man is a Napa Valley vineyard worth $25 million that she owns with her husband. The vineyard produces expensive grapes for high-end wines. Napa grapes fetch up to $4,000 a ton compared to $300 a ton for other grapes.

Aside from her own bouts of corruption, Nancy Pelosi, who is the top Democrat in the House,  has ignored serious incidents of corruption within her own party. Possibly Pelosi’s biggest contribution to Democratic Party corruption was her covering up and downplaying a case of tax evasion by a top member of the U.S. Congress.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-New York), the man in charge of writing tax policy for the entire country, has yet to adequately explain how he could possibly “forget” to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income he earned from his off-shore rental property.

He also faces allegations that he improperly used his influence to maintain ownership of highly coveted rent-controlled apartments in Harlem, and misused his congressional office to fund raise for his private Rangel Center by preserving a tax loophole for an oil drilling company in exchange for funding. In other words, while “fighting” against fossil fuels and the oil industry, Rangel was actually benefiting from his relationship with an oil producing company.

On top of all that, Rangel recently amended his financial disclosure reports, which doubled his reported wealth. (He “forgot” about $1 million in assets.) And what did he do when the House Ethics Committee started looking into all of this? He apparently resorted to making “campaign contributions” to dig his way out of trouble.

“Has anyone bothered to ask these so-called public servants how they become multi-millionaires while making $174,000 per year?” asks former police detective Charles Collier who specialize in white-collar crime cases.

“Pelosi and her husband, Paul, with a net worth estimated at $120 million, bought shares in the initial public offering of credit-card company Visa Inc. in 2008, when Pelosi was speaker of the House… They bought the shares just before legislation died that would have limited the fees credit-card issuers could charge retailers. The shares more than doubled in the next two months,” Collier noted.

Representatives’ Salary

The salary for most members of the U.S. House of Representatives is $174,000 per year, according to the Congressional Research Service. This annual wage is the same for members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Salaries are higher for those in leadership roles. In particular, the Speaker of the House receives $223,500 per year, and the majority and minority leaders of the House each earn $193,400 per year.

Outside Income

Representatives may not have an outside earned income that is more than 15 percent of their basic pay. Outside earned income includes any compensation for personal services that the representative has done. In addition, Representatives are limited in the ways that they can earn outside income. For instance, they cannot be employed with any entity nor can they lend their names to an entity, such as through an endorsement. They also cannot serve on any boards of directors. They can teach, but only if they receive permission from the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Finally, they cannot accept honoraria.