We’re unearthing Pelosi family “questionable” financial dealings that have to do with Speaker Pelosi’s favoritism on the part of those of special interest to her. They often have included her husband, brother-in-law, and very connected political donors. Nancy learned the political process of corruption and watched it work as a girl.
You may not have known this, but when she was younger she was “the mayor’s daughter.” Nancy Pelosi’s father Thomas D’Alesandro Jr. allegedly was a “constant companion” of notorious mobster Benjamin “Benny Trotta” Magliano and other underworld figures during his political years in Baltimore, MD. D’Alesandro was a Congressman for five terms from 1938 to 1947, and Baltimore mayor for three terms from 1947 to 1959. Magliano was identified by the FBI as one of Baltimore’s “top hoodlums,” and he widely was acknowledged as the representative for New York’s Frankie Carbo who made his bones with Murder, Inc. and later became a made guy in the Lucchese family. The allegations are included in D’Alesandro’s recently-released FBI files.
Nancy’s Dad was not the only member of her immediate family who had legal issues. During the summer of 1953, Nancy’s brother, Franklin D’Alesandro, aged twenty, was one of fourteen youths charged with having committed rape of two girls, aged eleven and thirteen, during July of that year. It was reported that Franklin D’Alesandro was the only one of twelve of those tried at that time who was successful in obtaining an acquittal.
A February 27, 1961, FBI memo states that “the consensus of opinion among persons connected with law enforcement that D’Alesandro (Nancy’s brother) was acquitted of rape because of the brilliant fashion the way his case was handled by his defense attorney.” D’Alesandro was represented by Joseph Sherbow who managed to sever his client from the other defendants and ensured his trial went first so any convictions against the others would not prejudice him. Apparently, D’Alesandro (the “elder”) believed that his son was guilty of the charge, and prior to trial urged him to plead guilty and “take his medicine.”
Nancy grew up quickly in politics learning from one of the all-time best movers and shakers in politics: her father. And she’s developed it into an art. And she uses it prolifically — especially ingratiating family members and close political allies with “business opportunities.”
Yesterday we talked extensively about her husband Paul and his real estate dealings that have netted the pair tens of millions of dollars since the early part of this century. And those real estate ventures are still paying dividends as well as garnering Nancy huge campaign contributions. Let’s look at other financial dealings that have been purposely kept below the Media radar screen.
Green Energy
“Green Energy” has for more than a decade been the buzz in industry that has attracted constant attention and taxpayer dollars from Washington. One of the reasons for its luster is the ability to easily justify taxpayer grants and loan guarantees to startup Green Energy companies to “assist” the U.S. to — through the private sector — quickly head down the path toward energy independence, but, more importantly, “renewable” green energy independence. The Obama Administration saw that opportunity with an open cash register in mind. And the 44th president certainly opened that cash register that started full of taxpayer dollars and loan guarantees that were doled out emptying the taxpayer cash register indiscriminately to Silicon Valley companies in obscene amounts.
I was in San Jose on business several years ago and drove by a very large building right on the side of the freeway. On it was emblazoned a sign with “Solyndra” proudly displayed for all to see. After all, Solyndra was an Obama federal government and American taxpayer subsidized miracle company. Solyndra WAS subsidized, but Solyndra was far from a miracle.
Deep in the mire of the nearly $1 billion obligations to American taxpayers for Solyndra was another Pelosi family member. Let’s look.
Solyndra
Solyndra, which manufactured unique solar panels based on cylindrical cells that didn’t require silicon, was once a burgeoning clean energy superstar, attracting more than $1 billion from private investors. In 2009, the Obama administration approved a $535 million loan guarantee that helped the company build a new factory in Fremont, Calif. It became a poster child for the president’s stimulus efforts. But in August 2011, the factory suddenly closed, and by September the company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Nancy Pelosi had no direct involvement in the Solyndra loan guarantee, although she side-stepped the normal House budget examination process for all entities seeking federal loan guarantees.
It went downhill in the green energy federal loan business after the Solyndra horror.
Next?
Under Obama, the Department of Energy approved $1 billion in new loans to green energy companies — including a $737 million loan guarantee to a company known as SolarReserve:
Despite the knowledge that Solyndra was tanking, then-Minority Leader Pelosi’s brother-in-law, second in command at the energy investment firm backing the project, somehow secured government funding for the SolarReserve project. PCG Clean Energy & Technology Fund (East) LLC, listed as one of the investors in the project was given the staggering loan, which even dwarfs that given to failed company Solyndra. The project was expected to generate enough electricity to power 43,000 homes. That’s it. Obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the loan just two days after the doomed $535 million Solyndra disaster was scheduled for completion.
On SolarReserve’s website is a list of “investment partners,” including the “PCG Clean Energy & Technology Fund (East) LLC.” As blogger American Glob quickly discovered, PCG’s number two is none other than “Ronald Pelosi, a San Francisco political insider and financial industry polymath who happens to be the brother-in-law of Nancy Pelosi, then was Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives.”
But wait… there’s more! One of SolarReserve’s other investment partners is Argonaut Private Equity:
“Steve Mitchell and Argonaut Private Equity might have a chance to recoup some of their losses in the Solyndra debacle now that the Department of Energy has given a $737 million dollar loan guarantee to a company backed by Argonaut that also lists Mitchell among its board of directors. Mitchell served on the Solyndra LLC Board of Directors. He also serves as Managing Director for Argonaut Private Equity, a company that invested in Solyndra through the LLCs parent company. After Solyndra declared bankruptcy, two Democratic members of the U.S. House asked that Mitchell testify about Solyndra. Though he has not appeared before Congress, he has “been asked to provide documents to Congress” pertaining to Solyndra.
At the time, Florida Rep. Cliff Stearns, then-chairman of the investigations subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce warned:
“The administration’s flagship project Solyndra is bankrupt and being investigated by the FBI, the promised jobs never materialized, and now the Department of Energy is preparing to rush out nearly $5 billion in loans in the final 48 hours before stimulus funds expire — that’s nearly $105 million every hour that must be finalized until the deadline.”
Despite the warnings, Energy Secretary Chu said the projects would create 900 construction jobs and, get ready for this, trumpets, please… 52 permanent jobs. Whoopie!
All told, Obama era expenditures, first put in place by Speaker Pelosi, who did away with the usual budgetary process, exceeded revenues by more than $1 Trillion each year. This became the baseline for unquestioned omnibus spending packages that subsequent Republican Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan refused to reign in. This allowed politicians on both sides of the aisle to grow rich, while our children were saddled with a debt burden from which they are not likely to escape.
There’s a reason Nancy Pelosi has a net worth ranging from $120-185 million. She more than likely earned her money the old fashioned way: by stealing it from taxpayers. It’s the same reason Democrats are lining up behind the Green New Deal that reads like a Republican parody of a Democrat program. Now put the “Green New Deal” in perspective. If the Beltway elites grew rich by spending $4 trillion dollars each year, imagine how much can they believe they can skim from doubling or tripling those expenditures.
Asking for a friend.
Pelosi Help From Obama
As the Obama White House rejected charges that the Obama administration was motivated by politics in its decisions on green energy loans, scrutiny increased over the preference given to Democratic donors seeking federal loans. 2011 emails suggested that politics did play a role in administration decisions regarding its energy loan guarantee programs. But beyond the timing of political announcements, the Solyndra investigation churned up questions about the White House’s overall strategy of doling out taxpayer money. The rolls of green energy subsidies show that beyond a few headline-grabbing cases, several well-connected Democrats obtained taxpayer assistance for environmentally friendly projects.
Among the recipients are:
— Solyndra, which received $535 million in loan guarantees and whose chief investor was the George Kaiser Family Foundation. George Kaiser was an Obama campaign bundler.
— Brightsource Energy, which received $1.6 billion and whose senior adviser is Robert Kennedy, Jr., an early Obama backer;
— Solar Reserve, which got a $737 million loan, and whose major investor is a company run by Michael Froman, who was a deputy assistant to the president. Froman bundled up to $500,000 for the president’s 2008 campaign;
— Granite Reliable Wind Generation, which received a $168.9 million loan. The company’s majority owner is a firm formerly led by Nancy Ann DeParle, who became an Obama White House deputy chief of staff and former head of the president’s health care communications team during the reform debate; and
— Abound Solar, which received a loan guarantee worth $400 million. A key investor is billionaire heiress Pat Stryker, who gave $87,000 to Obama’s inauguration committee, and hundreds of thousands more to Democratic causes.
Peter Schweizer, author of the book, “Throw Them All Out,” wrote that at least 10 members of Obama’s finance committee and more than a dozen of his campaign bundlers took money from administration loan programs.
Taxpayers are on the hook for more than $2.2 billion from the federal government’s energy loan guarantee programs, according to an audit that suggested the controversial projects would not pay for themselves, as officials had promised.
Nearly $1 billion in loans have already defaulted under the Energy Department program, which included the infamous Solyndra stimulus project and dozens of other green technology programs the Obama administration approved and were implemented, totaling nearly about $30 billion in taxpayer backing, the Government Accountability Office reported in an audit.
It’s increasingly hard to tell the government’s green jobs subsidies apart from the Democrats’ friends and family rewards program. Funny that Democrats scream that Saudi’s renting out an entire floor of a Trump hotel is an untenable emolument.
What Is Nancy’s Net Worth?
Nancy Pelosi dodged a question from a woman at a town hall event last year regarding the lawmaker’s net worth as Pelosi criticized the GOP tax reform law and the federal budget.
“God never intended one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth while others live in abject deadening poverty,” Pelosi said at the Phoenix, Ariz. event, quoting Martin Luther King Jr., according to a video shared by the Republican National Committee.
Shortly thereafter, a woman from the crowd raised her voice and asked, “How much are you worth, Nancy? Are you in abject poverty?” the woman added.
“We’re not talking about that,” Pelosi said, noting that she has five grown children and can speak “louder than anybody.” Pelosi is considered one of the wealthiest members of Congress and her net worth is estimated to be approximately $143 million.
As House Speaker, Pelosi makes $193,000 a year. We have yesterday and today listed several examples of how the longtime Congresswoman from California has parlayed her personal and business relationships and those of her husband into an amazing net worth — not just for her and her immediate family, but for relatives and even close friends.
What worries many is not that the Speaker (or any other member of Congress, for that matter) is wealthy, it’s that almost to a person they enter Congress with a pile of campaign debt, they make $170,000 or so a year, and live in one of the nation’s most costly cities while maintaining a residence back home in their district for their families. They do all this and somehow become millionaires.
Americans see that and wonder how that happens.
You now know how it happens.
There are unwritten rules for those who enter Congress. They go like this:
- Take a seat, listen and learn;
- Don’t question power. Don’t question how party leaders function. Don’t question the rules of Congress;
- When you’ve proven you are a true part of our party and that you’ll do as told, you’ll begin to get good committee appointments. When that happens you’ll have financial doors open that you never knew existed. And you’ll be able to take advantage of those;
- Keep your mouth shut about those opportunities. We do not discuss family business outside the family;
- Democrats and Republicans alike have the same opportunities. We only push so hard against members of the “other side.” Why? They’ll win power and be in control. We do not want to upset these opportunities for them so that when they regain control, they’ll treat us the same;
- Make certain you always take care of those who put you in the places for you to take advantage of these opportunities. “What goes around comes around;”
- Never go outside the Congressional family to discuss any of the things you see and hear within our party;
- If you make a habit of breaking these rules we’ll see to it you are kicked to the curb and sent home. A Representative only has two years, a Senator six. But each of those can be shortened if the Party chooses.
Financial rewards are for sale. What’s the price? Total Compliance.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
