Pelosi: ‘I never demanded a bigger plane’; Evidence: ‘Yes, she did’
Below is a video we’ve all seen: Speaker Pelosi, in February 2007, denying that she or anybody in her office demanded the DOD provide her with a larger plane than the ones already provided to meet her personal-use demands.
“I have never asked for any larger plane….We’ve never asked for a larger plane, this is a myth that they are talking about on the floor,” she said. “No we haven’t asked for any larger plane. …this is not my request, it is a request of the Sergeant-at-Arms…
“We didn’t ask for a larger plane. Period.”
Unfortunately for Speaker Pelosi, her Clinton-esque outright denial of the charge that she demanded the DOD provide her with planes for personal use on the spur of the moment didn’t end the matter altogether. Instead of letting it die, Judicial Watch put in a FOIA request for the email traffic surrounding this issue — and, through that, found that the Speaker was (surprise!) lying.
“Is there nothing that can be done to get a non-stop flight?” wrote Pelosi scheduler Cortney Bright on February 26, 2007, after being told that the only way to do so would be to upgrade to a larger plane from the one Pelosi had already requisitioned.
“the spkr office continues to ask the escort if they can get a bigger plane,” said one internal DOD email, dated September 4, 2008.
““It is my understanding there are NO G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable,” said Pelosi appointee Kay King in a May 10, 2007 message to the DOD . “The Speaker will want to know where the planes are…”
“This is not good news, and we will now have some very disappointed folks, as well as a very upset Speaker,” King wrote in another message to DOD.
The email records of Pelosi’s staff not only bear out the fact that she was demanding DOD resources for personal use, and that she wanted to make sure she was traveling only in the biggest, nicest piece of air transport she could, but that her staff was entirely serious about making sure the DOD knew what the consequences of not playing along would be.
“Could you send me a hard copy of the DOD budget documents on the fy 08 request and the fy07 supplemental request?” wrote Pelosi staffer Mike Sheehy in a February 5, 2007 email to the DOD, in direct response to having the speaker’s request for a bigger, nicer plane that could take her from San Francisco to DC without having to refuel rebuffed. This was an implicit budgetary threat issued to a department Pelosi and her staff wanted something from.
Further, Pelosi not only demanded to use military aircraft as personal-convenience transports, but also to use a military base in lieu of a public airport for arrival and departure from her home — something, as you can see from the emails below, that isn’t even considered for the Secretary of Defense. The following are internal DOD emails written on December 9, 2008:
“[Pelosi] has business that is closer to Travis and due to the tight timeframe is requesting to depart out of Travis instead of SFO. She lives about 1.5 hours from SFO and much closer to Travis. LL is well aware of the all the rules and tries hard to get our travelers to follow them. But, if we dedicate an aircraft to her for her use, then shouldn’t we try to meet her itinerary? As [redacted] said, CVAM has never done this before….Whether or not it is the best use of assets is not the question, but instead is it worth upsetting the speaker…”
“We have never done this in the past. The deal is from OSD/Execsec, the White House and OSD/LA that the Speaker shuttle is from DC to SFO and back. We will not reposition. We do not reposition for convenience even for the SECDEF. It is not to far of a drive from Travis to SFO.”
“…you know I understand and feel with you…but, this is a battle that we are bound to lose if we tell the speaker office. In the end, this is what will happen. Can you forward higher for approval for this msn. I wish that I could say this is a one-time request, but we know it will probably happen again in the future. We know you are correct in your justification, but this is still the request from the speaker’s office.”
“AF/LL has asked this question before. We can’t reposition the airplane such a short distance. It is not a judicial use of the asset. It is too expensive to operate the jet when there is truly no need to do so.”
The email traffic makes it clear that, even if Pelosi herself wasn’t on the horn to DOD demanding personal transport, more comfort, and personal use of military bases and resources, her staff certainly was — and the DOD knew full well that the requests were coming not from the House Sergeant-at-Arms office, as Pelosi claimed, but from those speaking for the Speaker herself.
