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Pelosi Spends Hundreds of Thousands on Travel, Alcohol

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has squandered over $101,000 tax dollars on “in-flight services” on congressional delegations since 2008, according to new documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the government watchdog group Judicial Watch.

Expenditures on Pelosi-led CODELs, the group’s report shows, include thousands for liquor, beer and wine. Receipts show purchase of Johnny Walker, Grey Goose, Beefeater, Maker’s Mark, Courvoisier, Dewars, Bombay Sapphire and more, all courtesy of the American tax payer.

During the same two-year period, the entirety of Speaker Pelosi’s travel expenditures, including the use of Air Force aircraft for herself and relatives, cost the Department of Defense $2,100,749.59.

Judicial Watch’s report Wednesday captured the attention of the social conservative American Family Association, who called Pelosi’s expenses an “abuse of taxpayer dollars” in an urgent action alert to supporters.

“While many families struggle to make ends meet financially, the leader of the people’s House is snatching money out of their wallets to treat her guests to the finest and most expensive booze money can buy so they can party down while in the air,” the email read.

“[D]emand that your representative hold [Pelosi] accountable on your behalf. Urge your representative to conduct an investigation into this abuse and report back to you directly.”

On average, the Air Force incurred expenses of $28,000 per flight for Pelosi to travel from Washington, D.C. to her home district in San Francisco. Of the 103 international congressional delegations led by Pelosi, members of the Speaker’s family joined her for 31 trips.

Pelosi “has a history of wasting taxer funds,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “And these documents suggest the Speaker’s congressional delegations are more about partying than anything else.”

Last week, the group named Pelosi among the group’s ten most corrupt politicians for her “sense of entitlement” relating to her “boorish demands for military travel,” Fitton said. The list also included the names of Representatives John Murtha, Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, Senator Chris Dodd and President Barack Obama.

Cross-posted to Skepticians.com.

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COMMENTS

  • Russ Martin

    I’m not sure where the figure $28K per trip from Washington DC to San Francisco comes from – perhaps that covers the fuel. I’ve got to believe that the overall costs (maintenance, ramp fees, ground crew, etc.) are much higher. Factor in the costs of the flight crew (per diem, hotel, rental cars, etc.) and I doubt $28K even comes close.

    • itdiehard

      nt

      • conservative_faction
  • Patricia_C

    During his big speech in Nashua, New Hampshire, he admonished the crowd about spending money they don’t have during (his) tough economic times, telling them, “When times are tough, you tighten your belts.”

    “You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage.” he told them further. “You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.”

    A year ago (when he stuck his foot in his teleprompter’s mouth for the first time regarding Vegas) Obama said, “You can’t go take that trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on taxpayers’ dime..” Soooo, why doesn’t Obama have a problem with Nancy Pelosi loosening her belt on the “taxpayer’s dime” during “tough economic times”?

    This is just getting silly.

    • throwback59

      in my mind with your heading.
      All that money spent on booze explains that pickled, lemon sucking look Pelosi had throughout the SOTU speech.
      Without question she is the most Evita-like leader we ever had, and that includes Hillary.

      • Patricia_C

        … sorry about the image in your mind.
        It is “God-awful”, isn’t it?

        • throwback59

          used “Dressing down.”
          Nah, maybe not.

    • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • bballfan

    She is just awful. November cannot get here fast enough for me. Her seat may be safe.. ?? They think they are Gods.

  • bballfan

    She is just awful. November cannot get here fast enough for me. Her seat may be safe.. ?? They think they are Gods.

  • Crowe

    [sliding into flame-retardant* underthings]

    Lest we look like a bunch of tea-totalers, let’s at least acknowledge that the bar list was hardly top-shelf stuff, and certainly was far from “the finest and most expensive booze money can buy.” Check out that list: “Johnny Walker, Grey Goose, Beefeater, Maker?s Mark, Courvoisier, Dewars, Bombay Sapphire” That’s fairly middling stuff there. I’ve got no problem with the Speaker having that level of liquor on her official plane, and I’m actually (pleasantly) surprised it isn’t higher quality stuff.

    Abuses should certainly be investigated, and she’s got plenty of them to investigate, perhaps even in this travel price tag and the use of it by her relatives, but including that list as proof of the profligacy? C’mon…

    *that’s in the slow it down sense, not the Rahm Emmanuel-talks-about-colleagues sesse.

    • Swamp_Yankee

      nt

      • throwback59

        considering her political leanings.

    • Achance
    • RedBeard

      This goes for every other slimy politician who thinks he or she is entitled to live high at my expense.

      Hey, you congresscritters! Fly commercial (coach), and eat the stale airline lunch like the rest of us do. The free peanuts are pretty good. But buy your own booze, you freeloading cretins. :-(

    • http://slcliberty.blogivists.com randy streu

      How does this make it better?

      • Crowe

        Second, I didn’t say it was cheap, just that it wasn’t top shelf.

        Those labels are about what you’d find at any ordinary DC event, regardless of who’s picking up the tab.

        Honestly, if this is a legit gripe we’re really missing the big steal.

        • http://slcliberty.blogivists.com randy streu

          The point is the taxpayer money being spent on “in-flight expenses” while the rest of us are worried about jobs and the nation sits trillions of dollars in debt. I don’t care if it was fricking box champagne, or if half the money was spent on crackers and peanuts. It’s an expense that the taxpayers shouldn’t have to shoulder.

        • edintexas

          and it wasn’t top shelf stuff.

          Crowe – you are out of touch with the things which tick off the average American. By any chance, would you be a Republican currently serving in some capacity (elective, or non-elective)?

          When the average person flies, even on business, they most often fly Coach. Federal employees, and even Cabinet Secretaries, are required to fly coach when the taxpayers are paying the fare. Congresscritters are required to reimburse the taxpayers for the Coach fare for the equivalent commercial destination, So when was the last time Coach fare included unlimited free booze? Or free booze at all?

          It ticks me off to have a multi-millionaire have the cojones to be flying her relatives on my dime and with no connection to any official capacity on their part. I don’t care if the plane was going that way, they should either be flying commercial, or paying the cost of a chartered flight on an equivalent private aircraft.

          And the Congresscritters should get exactly the same “benefits” as they would receive on the Coach fare they are paying for. Too bad the military can’t set up cramped and crowded seating on their Gulfstreams to give the Congresscritters the full experience.

    • ocleverone

      it is an abuse of tax payer dollars.

      This is a very irritating issue. You see, every year, we donate our air miles to Hero Miles program through the Fisher House. The program assists with bringing families to wounded soldiers/sailors/marines but also if a wounded service member cannot get a government flight for rehabilitative treatment. This program is in conjunction with the Department of Defense which Nancy uses as a private Air Pelosi.

      While I realize it is my personal opinion, I would have first rather not had her using public dollars to entertain her entourage and secondly use those money to help military families and service members who actually do the heavy lifting.

  • Achance

    back when I travelled on the government dime all the time. I’d be a wealthy, wealthy man! Food and booze, if allowed at all, should be coming out of her office expense account, not as a separate item that the government is paying for.

    • dkunz

      Speaking as a 20+ year federal employee, we are not allowed to claim alcoholic beverages on our vouchers for official travel. Pelosi and company are as much working for the taxpayer as I am. Those folks surely do have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. It disgusts me.

  • DefendUSA

    But because of the actions of Red Nanny, in my house we don’t get to buy the Grey Goose, or the single malt LaGauvulin anymore…Somebody tell Nanny that there is a recession going on, hey?
    Oh. MYBAD. She’s what they call an elitist, right? And how does Red Nanny Piglosi get more of an expense account than the Pied Piper?

  • http://pocketchangeproductions.net/ anotherindyfilmguy

    An heiress (?) who is likely fiscally capable of owning her own airplane and could probably have it operated for way less of a cost than she forces the Air Force to expend during a time of war feels she is entitled to tax money to pay for not only her own food and bar tab, in addition to running the AF around like lackeys (during a war when resources in the military are strained) and including her relatives, unrelated to any federal business, doing the same using her name to get their free flights?

    Perhaps the House Ethics Committee should get right on this, investigate and censure her. Force her to pay back every dime from her own personal fortune.

    Perhaps the voters of her district will either get tired of her making them look bad or wise up to her antics and send someone to represent them…

    Not holding my breath for either… Probably more likely they will scrape her festering corpse form her office chair sometime and make an animatronic robot for leftist masters to employ to run the nation into the ground… hmmm… hmmm…

    • bigmaude

      She will probably not fester, but your comment reminded me of something.
      Stick with me, it’s all over, the world I mean, someone like Will Smith survives, in DC, he goes into the speaker’s office, the chair is turned around toward the window, (do you hear the Psyco music?) Will turns the chair around and, yea it’ hhhheeerrr! I don’t know, guess I had better get some more coffee….

  • dudette

    will they have the cojones to do an ethics investigation? Methinks not, and if they did Pelosi would beat them at their game somehow. We need Lee Atwater right now, in fact a few thousand of him.The Republicans have to have a lean mean image and stop wetting their pants everytime the press misrepresents them. You can’t play nice to the press, they do not reward you for good manners. In fact they disrespect you. I wish someone would get it, and take it to the left, and start TEACHING what our country’s values, core beliefs are. Just to reiterate them in public would bea good start right now

  • bigmaude

    Has a quote from The Watchman about whores and such drowning in stuff and….stuff asking for help out of the stuff, well, anyway, can I be the one who looks down at Mz. Piglosi,( great name), and says noooooo! Please Please Puleeeeezzzz!

  • sfpeaks

    she is flown into Travis AFB because it is closer to her home than SFO. If SFO is 1.5 hrs from her home, she is living in St Helena, not San Francisco. Why is she the rep for SF?

    • James Schram

      for political reasons. Travis would make it easy for her to get to her Napa Valley vineyard that uses non-union labor to pick grapes and sell those grapes to non-union wineries. Nothing like fighting for the little folks…

  • realskinny

    pick up the bar tab for anyone short of an official reception or dinner for foreign dignitaries. Put that aside, flying her relatives on military aircraft when she isn’t even present has got to be illegal. SHE gets to fly on the taxpayers dime for security purposes. Obviously her family members and necessary staff can accompany her but these planes are not her personal property, available for running errands or taxing her relatives about. Let them travel on commercial flights and be inconvenienced like the rest of the (per Harry Reid) stinking people. If she has been flying her relatives around on flights she is not on, it’s stealing and a crime. The AF officer who OK’d it needs to be fired and Pelosi should go to jail.

  • scubadiver49er

    And who’s going to put her there? Eric Holder? Nope, unfortunately; he can’t even get the KSM military tribunal trial venue right. Just another day in D.C. at the taxpayer’s expense, just like the Copenhagen junkets. You are correct about the flights where Piglosi wasn’t even on. November can’t come fast enough!!!

  • scubadiver49er

    is probably in St. Helena. Probably her 3rd home is in S.F. somewhere, probably in the old Haight-Ashbury neighborhood with all of the dope dealers.

  • radcabasa

    I love the effort being spent on demonizing Pelosi. However,regardless of the facts or not,she is typical of all politicians in Washington. The top states receiving federal money (per capita) are Mississippi,Alaska,N and S dakota,Hawaii,Iowa,montana Virgina,Alabama and Kentucky. These states receive hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. Their representatives travel.on you expense account, to home and back. Lieberman and McCane spent hundreds of thousands on a “fact finding trip” to Pakistan where they had dinners,visited a few areas,did a number of Fox TV interviews and came home. Many of these guys take along family and full staffs and use airforce planes with mant many thousands of fuel.
    The federal welfare for farmers in the Dakotas alone is close to a trillion dollars.The earmarks in most states are hundreds of millions,The Mississippi “Discover Columbus” office is a million a year and has been in effect for 18 years. Guess what? it is run by the ex head of the Mississippi Republican party and she gets a very tidy salary and expenses.
    John Bohner had dinner with the CEO od J.P. Morgan and ,according to the Wall St.Journal, said that the Repubs were trying to stop Obama from regulating and limiting their salaries and the money donations from wall st should reflect their efforts. Eric Cantor,who is the represenhtative between the Repubs and Wall St. said the Wall St. guys should have buyers remorse with the Dems trying to regulate them. i.e. Give all that bonus money to us not the Dems.
    $$$$$ is what makes it all happen and the richest guys will win. It is no matter what color they wrap themselves in-they are all gang members. But,come on ,at least try to be fair in your criticism.

    • ocleverone
      • JadedByPolitics

        His IGNORANCE is breathtaking or as The idiot in Chief says UNPRECEDENTED….lol!

    • Repair_Man_Jack

      “I won.” He Snarked. “And I WILL trump you on that.”

  • talgus

    These articles need to show how much Nancy’s predecessors spent on their travels, adjusted for inflation. My guess, NO DIFFERENCE. Time for all of the politicians to GO. Perhaps they should be required to teleconference from their home states for all activities. Just shut down Washington DC, as it seems to corrupt absolutely all those that enter.

  • olddog

    while Rome burns (They destroy U.S.economy) on purpose, they give our Children’s wealth to International Corps. and Banks and Unions, Why would they care for the pain, they are causing the working folks, and their children? Fascism never does care, except for their own ends, and needs.
    Support our Troops!
    One Old Dog

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