Anonymous Lawmakers Report Dianne Feinstein, 88, in State of Mental Decline
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday that a growing number of lawmakers are concerned that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who is 88 years old, is in a state of mental decline so severe that she may need to resign in the near future.
Critics have raised such concerns about Feinstein before, notably when she showed some civility toward Republicans during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Amy Barrett in 2020. Feinstein also rankled Democrats by praising one of Barrett’s answers to her questions. Feinstein, who was the ranking member of the minority party on the committee, was forced by caucus leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to step down from her post.
There were also concerns raised about Feinstein’s age during her last re-election effort in 2018, when she was attacked by local activists as being too moderate. The California Democratic Party actually refused to endorse her for re-election.
Now, however, the concerns are more urgent, and seem unconnected to any particular political fight. The Chronicle noted:
Four U.S. senators, including three Democrats, as well as three former Feinstein staffers and the California Democratic member of Congress told The Chronicle in recent interviews that her memory is rapidly deteriorating. They said it appears she can no longer fulfill her job duties without her staff doing much of the work required to represent the nearly 40 million people of California.
They said that the memory lapses do not appear to be constant and that some days she is nearly as sharp as she used to be. During the March confirmation hearing for soon-to-be-Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Feinstein appeared composed as she read pertinent questions, though she repeated comments to Jackson about the judge’s composure in the face of tough questioning. But some close to her said that on her most difficult days, she does not seem to fully recognize even longtime colleagues.
“It’s bad, and it’s getting worse,” said one Democratic senator. This person said that within the Senate, Feinstein has difficulty keeping up with conversations and discussions.
Feinstein’s colleague, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA), defended her, though acknowledged he had heard concerns from others.
Feinstein’s term would expire in 2024. If she retired, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) would nominate her replacement, as he did when picking Padilla to replace Kamala Harris after she was elected Vice President in 2020. He is up for reelection this year.
Critics of President Joe Biden, who will turn 80 this year, have also argued that he seems to be declining in cognitive ability.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Not Just Biden: Lawmakers Say Dianne Feinstein Is Cognitively Impaired
'It's bad, and it's getting worse'
Four Democratic members of Congress, three of whom are senators, say Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), who is 88 years old, is too cognitively impaired to serve out her term, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday.
One who has known the senator for 15 years had to reintroduce themself to Feinstein multiple times during a recent policy meeting. Her memory fails, and she has difficulty distinguishing longtime colleagues, the lawmakers said. During last month's Supreme Court confirmation hearings, she often repeated herself. "It's bad, and it's getting worse," a Democratic senator revealed. One Democratic aide even shared a joke: Californians have "a great junior senator in Alex Padilla and an experienced staff in Feinstein's office."
Reports of Feinstein's deteriorating cognitive ability have circulated for the past few years. Then-Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) had to tell Feinstein twice to step down as ranking member of the Judiciary Committee because she forgot about their first conversation.
"It was like Groundhog Day," a source told the New Yorker in 2020, "but with the pain fresh each time."
In September, former California Democratic senator Barbara Boxer became the first party figure to suggest Feinstein should retire.
"If Sen. Feinstein were to call me today and asked my advice … I would say only you can decide this," Boxer told the Los Angeles Times. "But from my perspective, I want you to know I've had very productive years away from the Senate doing good things. So put that into the equation."
Feinstein has rebuffed her critics, saying she may forget things but her cognitive abilities have not "diminished."
Lawmakers who spoke anonymously to the San Francisco Chronicle did so before Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum, died of cancer in February.
"I have worked with her for a long time and long enough to know what she was like just a few years ago: always in command, always in charge, on top of the details, basically couldn't resist a conversation where she was driving some bill or some idea," a California House Democrat told the Chronicle. "All of that is gone."
Some lawmakers defended Feinstein's mental acuity, including 82-year-old House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), who called the lawmakers' claims "ridiculous," and Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.), who said Feinstein mailed him a handwritten letter after he was stuck for more than 24 hours in traffic on I-95.
Feinstein has not held a town hall meeting in her state since the beginning of her current term. If she serves until 2024 and Democrats maintain a Senate majority, she could become the upper chamber's president pro tempore, making her third in line for the Oval Office behind Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Published under: California, Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi
THERE IS A REASON WHY CHINA’S GREAT WHORE, SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, WAS FIRST TO ENDORSE JOE BIDEN. THEY ARE ON THE SAME ELEVATED LEVEL OF CORRUPTION AND HAVE BOTH SERVED RED CHINA WELL. JUST FOLLOW THE MONEY!
ACCORDING TO THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, CHINA’S ENTIRE ECONOMY IS PREDICATED ON THE CHINESE THEFT OF AMERICA.
WHO WAS THERE TO HELP THEM?
DO A SEARCH FOR SENATOR DIANNE FEISNTEIN AND RED CHINA!
China: Power and Prosperity -- Watch the full documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JovtmKFxi3c
THE BIDEN KLEPTOCRACY
American people deserve to know what China was up to with Joe Biden, especially when Beijing had already shelled out millions of dollars to Biden family members — including millions in set-asides for “the big guy.” What else is on that infamous Hunter Biden laptop? The conflicted Biden Justice Department cannot be trusted to engage in any meaningful oversight on this issue. We need a special counsel now.
TOM FITTON - JUDICIAL WATCH
THE BIDEN KLEPTOCRACY
RIDING THE DRAGON: The Bidens' Chinese Secrets (Full Documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRmlcEBAiIs
Chris Hedges: How Republicans, Democrats, and the Media Have Weakened US Democracy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2jyzp09_g8
Schweizer: ‘It’s Going to Be Business as Usual’ for Hunter’s Dealings
Schweizer: ‘It’s Going to Be Business as Usual’ for Hunter’s Dealings
Joe Biden, the corrupt, unaccomplished 47-year career politician, with a reputation of having been a proud segregationist, an unabashed plagiarist and liar, a resolute tale-teller, and a serial flip-flopper, is pretending to head up a radical social-democratic ticket for President of the United States that includes as his running mate the ambitious, disagreeable junior senator from California: Kamala Harris.
“Protect and enrich.” This is a perfect encapsulation of the Clinton Foundation and the Obama book and television deals. Then there is the Biden family corruption, followed closely behind by similar abuses of power and office by the Warren and Sanders families, as Peter Schweizer described in his recent book “Profiles in Corruption.” These names just scratch the surface of government corruption. BRIAN C JOONDEPH
· Feinstein’s Close China Ties Under Scrutiny After Chinese Spy Discovery
· BY ZACHARY STIEBER
·
· News of a Chinese spy working for U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein broke recently, revealing the spy was employed by Feinstein for 20 years.
· Initially reported as part of a larger story about spies in Silicon Valley, a former intelligence official later revealed that the staffer was Feinstein’s driver for many years.
· The source told the San Francisco Chronicle that the driver passed information to Chinese officials based at the local Chinese Consulate. Part of the staffer’s role was acting as a liaison between Feinstein’s San Francisco office and the local consulate.
· The staffer was recruited to spy after visiting China.
· The staffer, who has not been named, worked for Feinstein for 20 years.
·
Senator Feinstein was alerted to the spy about five years ago. The FBI alerted Feinstein after investigating and finding the staffer shared nothing of substance.
· “They interviewed him, and Dianne forced him to retire, and that was the end of it,” the source said. “None of her staff ever knew what was going on. They just kept it quiet.”
· Feinstein wouldn’t comment on the spy but her office told CBS that none of the staffers in San Francisco have ever had security clearances.
· Noting the oddness of the discovery, President Donald Trump said via Twitter on August 3: “Dianne is the person leading our Nation on ‘Collusion’ with Russia (only done by Dems). Will she now investigate herself?”
· …Dianne is the person leading our Nation on “Collusion” with Russia (only done by Dems). Will she now investigate herself? https://t.co/OG6l04bBwg
· — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2018
· Feinstein’s Relationship With China
· Some details of Feinstein’s past are now being examined anew, centered on her close relationship with China, beginning with her service as mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988.
· Feinstein has long been linked to China. For instance, she hosted former president of China Jiang Zemin at her home for dinner when she was mayor of San Francisco, and celebrated the resumption of air service from China to the United States (starting with San Francisco International Airport) after a 32-year hiatus.
· San Francisco and Shanghai have been sister cities for 38 years, after the agreement was put into place by Feinstein and Jiang, who was then Shanghai’s mayor. Feinstein was cited as having a “close relationship” with Jiang and ties between the two continued for many years later.
· Jiang is infamous for cracking down on human rights, most notoriously by banning the peaceful meditation practice of Falun Gong and throwing many of its estimated 100 million adherents into jail.
· 
A re-enactment of organ harvesting in China on Falun Gong practitioners, during a rally in Ottawa, Canada, 2008. (The Epoch Times)
· Under Jiang, torture, rape, murder, and even organ harvesting from detained practitioners became common.
· To help facilitate the relationship between the U.S. and China, Feinstein asked organizers of the city’s popular Chinese New Year Parade to stop displaying the flag of the Nationalist Chinese government, which ruled in exile in Taiwan after 1949.
· Feinstein also defended China, despite its communist policies, insisting that it was merely “socialist.”
· “There was originally this kind of anti-communist view of China,” Feinstein told the Washington Post. “That’s changing. . . . China is a socialist country but one that is increasingly becoming capitalistic.”
· Husband Becomes Prominent Investor in China
· Several articles from the 90s explore the development of not only Feinstein’s developing relationship with China while she was mayor, but her husband’s burgeoning investments there.
· According to the Los Angeles Times, in 1997 Feinstein’s husband Richard Blum, who invests his own and clients’ money into undervalued firms, expanded his business investments into the communist nation to the point that “his firm is now a prominent investor” there.
· In 1992, the investments amounted to one project worth less than $500,000. Two years later he was planning to invest up to $150 million and two years after that a Blum investment firm paid $23 million for a stake in a Chinese government-owned steel company.
· Another investment by Blum’s firm was helped by the International Finance Corp., an arm of the World Bank, which invested $10 million in the leading producers of soybean milk and candy in China.
· Utterly amazing to read this 1997 report on Sen Feinstein’s family’s political and business ties to #China in context of revelations about a Chinese spy working for her as a driver for 20 years, quietly let go seemingly rather than being brought to justice https://t.co/efwT2yZgkg pic.twitter.com/twAI5igZ2I
· — Benjamin Weingarten (@bhweingarten) August 4, 2018
· “It seems to be going quite well,” Rashad Kaldan—who in 1994 managed the IFC’s capital markets investments in Asia—told the Times of the project. He added: “There also was some comfort in that Mr. Blum had some contacts with the Chinese.”
· Blum said that his interest in China went back many years, predating political connections. He won permission from the Chinese in 1981 to climb the east face of Mt. Everest and called himself a close friend of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader who the Chinese government opposes.
· In dispatches written for the San Francisco Examiner, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Blum said that a goodwill visit to China by Feinstein in 1979 helped him win permission to climb Everest.
· “We had come to build goodwill, promote trade and to make new friends,” Blum wrote in one story, adding, “but I asked for and received permission to have another kind of meeting—one with the Chinese Mountaineering Association.”
· Trips to China
· Feinstein took three trips between 1995 and 1997 to China, in addition to trips earlier in her mayoral service, to meet with top communist officials, including Jiang. Blum often attended the meetings with her, an arrangement the Times described as “unusual.”
· At one time, the couple had dinner at Zhongnanhai, the enclave reserved for the president and other top officials in China.
· “We had dinner in Zhongnanhai in Mao Tse-tung’s old residence in the room where he died. We were told that we were the first foreigners to see his bedroom and the swimming pool. It was a very historic moment to see some of these things,” told the Los Angeles Times. Mao was the communist leader of China whose policies led to the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese people.
· Feinstein insisted that Blum had never spoken to officials during meetings about business.
· “I am open to any suggestion as to how I can even make a firewall more fireproof,” she said. “I don’t know what else I can do. . . . Either he retires or I suppose we end our marriage.”
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