Trump abused his power, just like Pelosi abuses hers

On Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2010, the House Financial Services Committee held a very odd hearing. Chairman Barney Frank didn’t want to have the hearing, which involved regulations on stock offerings. Frank clearly thought it was pointless, and he left early.

So, why did the hearing happen?

“I should note also that it was Speaker Pelosi, who first called this to our attention earlier in the year,” Frank explained. “It is something that the speaker has taken a great interest in because of her interest in job creation, so we have had to find a way to have this hearing.”

So, Nancy Pelosi ordered the hearing, in other words. Why? That’s no mystery. It was about money.

The hearing’s star witness was a financier named Bill Hambrecht. Hambrecht at that time had contributed more than $1 million to Democrats, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Hambrecht and his wife had given more than $24,000 to Pelosi by then, and much more to the campaigns of other House Democrats who had made Pelosi speaker of the House.

Hambrecht, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, “said he never contributed to politics until he was inspired by Pelosi after meeting her in the early 1970s.”

Pelosi inspired Hambrecht to donate, and in turn, Hambrecht apparently “inspired” Pelosi to push a very specific regulatory change. The Dec. 7 hearing was all about the regulations governing Initial Public Offerings. Hambrecht’s business is arranging IPOs. In the congressional hearing that he personally bought, he got to tout his firm’s business and push for changes that would help expand his business.

Oh, by the way, one of Hambrecht’s employees at the time was Paul Pelosi Jr., the speaker’s son. Paul Pelosi Sr., Nancy’s husband, was already in business with Hambrecht through a minor football league called the United Football League, which folded in 2012.

After the hearing, Hambrecht would spend at least another $20,000 trying to help Pelosi’s party retake the House in 2012.

It sure looked like a quid pro quo. Pelosi used her speakership to try to help her son’s employer, who was also her husband’s business partner and one of her major donors. It doesn’t get much worse than this.

Pelosi’s Democrats will impeach President Trump this week on the charge he abused his power. In itself, the charge against Trump is true: Trump leveraged congressionally approved foreign aid in an effort to coax Ukraine into announcing a corruption investigation into the family of his political rivals.

Here’s the problem: Washington is one giant abuse-of-power orgy. Congressmen, senators, bureaucrats, cabinet officials, and presidents constantly use their official power to enrich themselves, to extract campaign contributions, and to ensure their reelection.

Abuse of power ought to be punished, and grave abuse of power ought to be punished with removal from office. But that’s not how it works. Pelosi’s case makes that obvious.

Pelosi has repeatedly used her speakership to advance her own political and financial interests in ways that arguably violate federal law.

Her Hambrecht relationship is just one very, very egregious example. Pelosi’s legislative dealings involved crooked bargains. To pass the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill through the House, Pelosi cut a deal with Monsanto to effectively subsidize the use of herbicide Roundup along with Roundup-ready crops.

On Obamacare, the House members that needed the most persuading — that is, the members who lost their jobs by voting for the bill — generally landed lobbying jobs at Democrat-connected firms with clients affected by the bill. This was surely not a coincidence.

It sure looks like Pelosi blended donations, lobbying, and legislating. Nobody has ever tried to expel her from Congress, and indeed the Democrats returned her to power this year.

Congress shouldn’t just look the other way regarding Trump’s abuses of power. But nobody should pretend his abuses are extraordinary. Government power is supposed to be used for the governed, but anyone who has followed Washington knows that’s the exception; as a rule, it is used to benefit those who govern.

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