Did Pelosi Request a Private Plane Again
Pelosi Seeks Upgrade for Government-Provided Plane
WASHINGTON, Feb. 8, 2007 — -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., today responded to Republican critics who have accused her of making unreasonable demands on the Pentagon for a luxurious airplane her Republican predecessor never requested.
Pelosi charged that the Pentagon is treating her request for a military plane differently than that of her predecessor because she is a woman.
The Speaker told gathered reporters, "As a adult female, as a adult female speaker of the House, I don't desire any less of an opportunity than male person speakers when they have served hither," implying a sexist undertone to the recent criticism.
"This is something that'southward very foreign that the Department of Defense and the Pentagon, which I have been a constant critic of the state of war in Iraq...has decided that they will go public virtually a conversation on an issue that applied to the other Speaker," Pelosi continued, refering to former Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Sick.
"I want an aircraft that will attain California," Pelosi told reporters Wed afternoon, insisting that she doesn't care what kind of plane it is as long every bit it can fly nonstop to her domicile commune.
Merely by Thursday, Pelosi'south tune had changed, telling reporters, "If they can accept a airplane that can go cross country then I'll have that plane. If they don't, I will get commercial."
Pelosi claimed on Wednesday that news reports suggesting that she seeks a lavish jet advise a "misrepresentation that could only exist coming from the administration. One would wonder why the do accounted to be necessary from a security standpoint would be mischaracterized in the press. I know that it's not coming from the president, because he impressed upon me the amount of security I need to take."
Since Sept. eleven, 2001, the speaker of the House of Representatives -- second in the line of succession to the presidency behind the vice president -- has received what the Air Strength refers to equally "shuttle service," the apply of military planes to travel for security reasons. Pelosi's predecessor, Rep. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., used a C-20, the war machine version of the Gulf Stream 3 business jet, a twin-engine turbo-fan aircraft that seats 12 passengers with a crew of five.
Just while the C-20 could fly to Hastert's Aurora, Sick., district, which is slightly more than 700 miles from Washington, D.C., without stopping to refuel, Pelosi's home district is in San Francisco, more than 2,800 miles from the nation'due south capital, and the C-20 generally would demand to terminate and refuel to brand information technology all the way to the Bay Area. And so Pelosi requested a plane that could get in to California without having to terminate forth the way, and asked for clarification from the Pentagon almost whether friends and colleagues could accompany her.
Various Republican officials in contempo days accept claimed that Pelosi has requested a C-32 aeroplane for her travels -- a luxurious and specially configured version of the Boeing 757-200 commercial intercontinental airliner. The aeroplane seats 45 passengers with business-class accommodations and a crew of upward to 16, depending on the mission. Information technology features a communications eye, a fully enclosed stateroom for the primary rider, a changing area, a conference facility, an entertainment system, and a convertible divan that seats three and folds out to a bed. The C-32 can cost as much as $22,000 an hour to operate. It's normally used by the first lady, the vice president, Cabinet officials and members of Congress upon request.
"Simply a month into the new Democratic bulk, we are talking nigh the costs of an arrogance of office," said Republican Briefing Chairman Adam Putnam of Florida at a briefing for reporters Tuesday. "The same week she is talking nigh fiscal responsibleness, she is requesting a jumbo jet to taxi her back and forth from her district, something that is a major deviation from the previous speaker. Certainly, it is the interest of someone who is in the presidential succession to have admission to a secure aircraft, but this is not a routine armed forces charter flying. This is Air Force Three."
Late Wednesday afternoon, one of Pelosi's closest allies in the House, Rep. John Murtha, D-Penn., chairman of the key Appropriations Committee subcommittee on defense, told CNN that the Pentagon was making "a fault" by leaking data unfavorable to the speaker "since she decides on the allocations for the Section of Defense."
I'll C-20 and Enhance You lot
House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., seems to be the ane who beginning publicly raised the notion that the plane Pelosi requested is the C-32.
"I understand on this particular airplane in that location is a bedroom," Blunt said.
"I hadn't heard that," Putnam said.
"At that place is a stateroom," Edgeless said. "It is kind of a flight Lincoln chamber."
A Blunt aide said he first heard that the airplane Pelosi requested had a bedroom on CNN's "Lou Dobbs" Monday evening. "She could take a circus with her, for crying out loud," Dobbs said.
A Autonomous aide maintained that this was all nonsense.
"The Republicans and the assistants are intentionally mischaracterizing this," the adjutant said. "This is a security issue, and that's it. They've got nothing else to talk about so they make this upward."
The Hastert Precedent
The controversy began in December 2006, when House Sergeant at Artillery Pecker Livingood outset told Pelosi that the Air Strength had made an airplane available to Hastert to travel to and from his district after 9/11.
But, Livingood said in a statement, he "was uncertain of the rules and guidelines governing use of the plane" so he called the Pentagon and Air Forcefulness to seek clarification of the guidelines. Subsequently, several members of Pelosi'south staff and members of the Function of the Sergeant at Arms met with officials from the Pentagon and the Air Force liaison office to discuss the rules and guidelines that governed Hastert's use of a plane.
"We're still waiting to hear back from the Air Force on those guidelines," said Brendan Daly, communications director for Pelosi.
On Feb. ane, unnamed administration and congressional sources leaked to the Washington Times that Pelosi was "seeking regular military flights not only for herself and her staff just too for relatives and for other members of the California delegation. A knowledgeable source called the asking 'menu blanche for an aircraft any time.'"
On Tuesday, Feb. 6, Firm Republican leaders began accusing Pelosi of arrogance and hypocrisy, and calling the plane "Pelosi 1."
Pelosi and her aides said all she cares most is that the plane is able to wing direct to her home district in San Francisco without having to terminate and refuel. Capt. Herb McConnell, the spokesman for the 89th Airlift wing at Andrews Air Strength Base in Maryland, said the C-20 is sometimes "able to make a coast-to-coast flying at times during the yr, but not when there are potent headwinds such as during the winter."
Rewarding Supporters?
Republican leaders have also stated -- with no tangible evidence -- that Pelosi wants to utilize the plane to reward financial contributors.
"She was offered the same aircraft that the previous speaker had," Putnam said yesterday. "Information technology sabbatum 12 people, and she refused it, didn't call up it was large enough for all of her friends and supporters. In fact, she specifically requested that supporters be able to travel."
Said Blunt, "If you tin take your supporters in the air on a government airplane, that is a pretty large perk to exist able to offer, I would think, whether you are the speaker or anybody else."
Putnam said that this was hypocritical, since "this just subsequently we passed a ban on flight on corporate aircraft and a ban on flying with lobbyists, and yet she is requesting that supporters/lobbyists exist immune to fly on a war machine aircraft that the taxpayers are picking up the tab for," Putnam said. He called for Pelosi to provide public manifests of the itineraries and costs of the flying, which 1 congressional source said might price as much as $22,000 an 60 minutes to operate, and to provide some mode for the public to make certain political contributors weren't receiving free trips at taxpayers' expense.
Pelosi'due south part denied that she wanted anyone to exist able to travel on the plane other than those Hastert was able to bring forth -- security, staff, family and members of Congress going to the aforementioned airport.
"It has nothing to do with family unit and friends and everything to do with security," Pelosi said Wednesday. The sergeant at arms, she said, thinks "there is a need for this security. They have asked for information technology to go along. It is up to the Air Strength and administration to do that."
Democrats suspected Bush assistants operatives of stoking the flames of what Democrats deem a nonstory. The White House today was asked if it's "a good idea" for Pelosi to "have a large government armed services jet available to her to go back and along to California?"
"After Sept. 11, the Section of Defense -- with the consent of the White House -- agreed that the speaker of the House should take armed services transport," replied White Business firm spokesman Tony Snow. "And and then what is going on is that the Department of Defense is going through its rules and regulations and having conversations with the speaker nearly information technology. And then Speaker Hastert had admission to military aircraft and Speaker Pelosi will, also."
The White House deferred all questions about the size of the plane to the Pentagon.
Air Force spokeswoman Lt. Col Cathy Reardon tells ABC News that when Hastert used the plane, "it was himself, and he usually had ane to three staff members and two security staff -- members of the Capitol police. His wife would sometimes fly, and he reimbursed the government for everyone," paying the authorities for the cost of a commercial flight to the same place. Hastert'due south role did not render a call for annotate.
Reardon recalls that "shuttle service" began when equally a consequence of nine/11 all commercial airports were closed. "It was a time of great uncertainty, so right afterward ix/11, Speaker Hastert requested from the Department of Defence airlift support because of airport closures and his position" in presidential succession.
"In 2003, the increased security environment and his vulnerability in a commercial airport led to agreements with DOD for him to apply 89th Airlift Fly assets," Reardon says.
A Fourth Pick?
There are four types of planes available at the 89th Airlift fly, at nearby Andrews Air Force Base – the C-20 Hastert once used, C-21s which are even smaller than the C-xx and thus not able to fly nonstop to San Francisco, and the fabled C-32.
At that place is likewise the C-37A -- a military version of the Gulf Stream 5, which is about the same size as the C-20, only is able to fly nonstop to California. One military machine source who asked not to be identified says that it may be that Pelosi and her aides were shown a C-37A and didn't sympathize that it was unlike and more than potent than a C-twenty, since they look so similar.
Would Pelosi be willing to use a smaller airplane than the lavish C-32 as long as it could fly declension to coast?
"Yep," said a Pelosi aide.
Z Byron Wolf and Dean Norland contributed to this report.
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2857672&page=1
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