AUGUSTA, Maine — A financial disclosure statement filed Monday gives some indication of how 1st District U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree’s June 2011 marriage to multimillionaire hedge-fund manager and Democratic Party benefactor S. Donald Sussman increased her personal wealth.
It also provided the Maine Republican Party with fodder to accuse Pingree, a Democrat seeking a third term in Congress, of hypocrisy and Sussman of being a “Democratic string-puller.”
The report encompasses 12 pages, most of which list Sussman’s assets and income from those assets. Pingree’s report of 2010 income and assets, submitted May 13, 2011, prior to her marriage to Sussman, covered three pages and listed no outside income and only one asset.
Members of Congress must file annual reports that disclose income from nongovernment sources and information about the source, type, amount, or value of the incomes they and household members receive. Financial disclosure reports for 2011 were due May 15, but Pingree received an extension, according to spokesman Willy Ritch, who said that extensions are granted without penalty and that roughly 102 members of Congress received extensions this year.
The “assets and unearned income” category of Pingree’s disclosure statement includes four pages with 77 listings of Sussman’s holdings. The report shows that 28 separate assets are valued at more than $1 million each. Among them are real estate in Maine and other states, investment firms, biotechnology and energy companies.
That list caught the Maine Republican Party’s attention. In a release titled “The Manchurian Candidate,” Maine Republican Party spokesman David Sorensen on Thursday cited a number of businesses on the list that he believes have links to China. Among them are Chilton China Opportunities, LP, China Aoyuan Property Group, New China Management Corp. and Cathay Investment Fund Limited.
“Clearly her priority is profiting off of her investments in China rather than casting good votes for businesses here at home,” Sorensen said in the release.
“Pingree parks her money in China, her private jet in the Virgin Islands and her political ambitions in Maine,” he said. “I think this heavy investment in China is just another example of Pingree being out of touch with the average Mainer.”
“This is a partisan political story that they’re trying to generate,” Ritch said Thursday in response to the release. “Republicans have policies that aren’t popular in this district, so they want to create a distraction.”
Sussman’s portfolio includes “a wide range of investments, some in other countries, but quite a few in Maine,” Ritch said. “Nobody should question [Pingree’s] or [Sussman’s] commitment to Maine.”
Sussman owns revenue-generating rental properties in Portland, according to the report, which also lists properties in Brooksville, Saco, Deer Isle and Augusta as assets.
Pingree’s opponent in this year’s 1st District U.S. House race is Springvale Republican Jon Courtney, majority leader of the Maine Senate. When asked Thursday about Pingree’s financial disclosure statement, Courtney said, “There’s a lot to it. I don’t profess to understand her investments. I’ll leave that for the experts.”
Filers aren’t required to specify exact amounts of income or values for assets. Instead, they report ranges of income or value. Reporting requirements for spouses and children are less rigorous than for members of Congress.
The only earned income Pingree’s latest disclosure statement lists is an undisclosed amount for Sussman from Trust Asset Management LLP, an investment firm.
Pingree did not list any outside earned income for herself in 2011.
As unearned income, she listed interest of between $201 and $1,000 on a JP Morgan Chase Bank asset valued at between $1 million and $5 million.
As was the case in 2010, she listed Nebo Lodge, an inn and restaurant on North Haven, as an asset of between $500,001 and $1 million. For both 2010 and 2011, Pingree identifies herself as an officer of Nebo Lodge, but she reports receiving no income from the lodge.
The disclosure statement lists partnership income, rent, dividends, capital gains and “other” as types of “unearned income” derived from Sussman’s assets.
Earlier this year, Sussman became the majority shareholder of Maine Today Media, which publishes the Portland Press Herald, Kennebec Journal and Waterville Sentinel, among other publications. The disclosure report filed Monday does not reflect that transaction, which occurred after the reporting period.
On the disclosure statement, Pingree answered “no” to questions about whether she or a family member had received reportable gifts or travel reimbursement worth more than $350 from one source in 2011. During the 2010 campaign, Republicans made an issue of her use of Sussman’s private plane while the two were engaged.
Sussman is a longtime contributor to Democratic election campaigns. In July, the Washington Post reported that Sussman already has donated $1 million to support Democrats running for U.S. House seats this year.
Pingree was first elected in 2008, defeating Republican Charlie Summers, who is now Maine’s secretary of state and the GOP’s candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe. Pingree defeated Republican Dean Scontras to win re-election in 2010. Before running for Congress, she served as president of Common Cause, a nonprofit organization that lobbies for open government and campaign finance reform.
1%
How could she qualify as a 1%er? She is a liberal democrat? They are exempt from being counted as a 1%er.
Not Rochelle, she’s the 0.01%
.0001%
What? A wealthy liberal Democrat with questionable ties and hidden out-of-state assets claiming some sort of solidarity and kinship with hard-working regular Mainers! I thought this story was about Princess Pingree, not Angus King!
Yes, they are so hidden. So much infact that she disclosed them.
SHOW US YOUR TAX RETURNS ,MITTens
Crickets!
It is because of politicians like her this country is being destroyed. Sending our jobs over to china!!!
I “liked” your comment and am not a big Pingree fan, but let’s remember who sent the jobs to China. The GOP. These are her husbands financial assets.
old boy…what ?? Mr Sussman is now and always has been a member of the Democrat party…you may be confused because some liberals seem to think that any one with any wealth must not be a liberal???? wake up there oldboy…. they are Democrats and they must be just as bad as you think Republicans with wealth are (maybe worse because they are so typically hypocritical???)
You are right and I have edited my comment to acknowledge that…sorry.
Actually the Dems were the majority party in both the house and senate when China was granted favored nation status. Wasn’t that really the first step in opening the outsourcing doors?
It was Clinton that released China from linking Human Rights concerns with Trade Policy
No, the first step actually was in 1980 when Reagan was President. He conceived the idea of NAFTA and it grew and spread from there. It was supposed to be North America, which included Mexico. Apparantly Mexico exploited their workers with long hours and low pay, and our corporations began moving south across the border for the cheap labor, and then overseas. I think it came to full worldwide fruition under the Clinton Administration. It’s been a very long process to bring us to the brink of bankruptcy, but our politicians (both Repub & Dem) have managed to do it.
so you are stepping back from your original post which laid this at the feet of the GOP?
No, the GOP got the ball rolling with Reagan. If you’re asking if I think all Republicans are crooks and all Democrats are honest…the answer is an emphatic NO. Good and bad on both sides. My simple statement, and I stand by it, is that the GOP began the exportation of American industrial jobs to Mexico, it then expanded worldwide to include China. It was a process.
Occupy Pingree! Where is the outrage?
It’s at Willard Romney’s house. Not sure which house though.
You’ll have to leave the country to protest at all of Rochelle’s houses. She really supports Chine though…and not China, Maine.
Can I compare her tax returns to Willard Romney’s, please,
…. before I get very upset about any candidates for high political office having offshore investments ?
I find it hard to believe that a bank account with a balance between $1 and $5 million earned only $201 to $1,000 in interest.
This woman is nasty and is all that is wrong with politics. She is a hypocrite,corrupt and pretty much as hard on the eye as any woman ever was…..yuk hurl!
Democrats ARE in the pockets of Wall Street. So what are you going to do to “bring back jobs from China”, vote Republican? They want to make the U.S. more LIKE China; authoritarian, suppressed, exploited labor force, and, of course MASSIVE corporate nanny state….. Because we are a democratic republic, we won’t allow such human suffering on our shores. Why do we allow it to support our economy?
Pingree’s choices have enabled her to jettison the burdens of the past and scale new social and financial bulwarks in such a manner that she now enjoys a rarefied perspective of Maine. Though she is much occupied by affairs of the state these days, the fortunate few still have an opportunity to catch a glimpse of Sussman’s plumpish courtesan extricating herself from the hatchway of a private jet on her way to any number of gala summer events. Mainers are blessed to have people of character like Pingree-Sussman; and yet – on another note – no less than a few of us are hopeful that Cynthia Dill’s bid for the senate will afford the lithe socialist an opportunity to add balance to an Amazonian Laurel and Hardy presence in 2012.
Before Maine GOP starts running off at the mouth it would behoove them to realize just where a huge chunk of the current GOP National money is coming from, namely Adelson, who gets a majority of his money from Chinese casino’s. No one’s gonna tell me, at least not with a straight face, that the GOP is raking in all of this campaign money from $ 10 and $ 20 dollar check’s on the basis of their campaign slogan’s. The Chinese know what their involvement is gonna do. So do the American voting public.
And now I understand why she has voted for 1.4 trillion dollar annual deficits, the stimulus which didn’t, and massive borrowing from the Peoples Republic of China… it isn’t so much destroying American System as supporting the Sussman system.
If this had been about a Republican, it would have been a front-page story. But since it is about a liberal Democrat, the BDN buries it in the back. Also, half of the story is about the Republican Party’s response and use of this information for political purposes, and less about the significance of the Chinese investments. Double standard?
What exactly is the significance of her husband’s investments? You don’t think Republicans have any investments in China?
No, Republicans openly invest in China as supporters of free enterprise, and they get hammered for it by liberals. When a prominent Democrat is found to have business interests in China, those same Democrats voice no problem with it. The significance of her husband’s investments are simply that he has some!
Who has hammered any Republican about Chinese investments? So your saying if Dem’s did something stupid the Republicans should be just as stupid?
FREE ENTERPRISE????? LOL!!!!! When thinking of China, “freedom” isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind. The highly authoritarian Chinese regime not only brutally suppresses human rights that “businesses” find “unfriendly” but heavily subsidizes businesses….
Police state and massive corporate welfare….. That’s what “business friendly” looks like, but is that what you want????
You guys are missing my point. I’m not suggesting that it is a great thing to invest in China, although some others would suggest that by doing so, it will ultimately open up China to more Western influence, which would someday perhaps enable their citizenry to have a more democratic government. My main point was about the lack of “front-page” coverage of this story by the BDN, revealing their bias toward left-leaning politicians. I believe that if this news had been about LePage or another Republican, they would not have buried it in the back of the paper.
“….by doing so, it will ultimately open up China to more Western influence, which would someday perhaps enable their citizenry to have a more democratic government.” Let’s just “invest” in slavery, war and degradation and somehow we’ll put an end to those things? Insane! …an idea that has been floated since Nixon, and soundly disproven. It isn’t the Chinese, who have made inhuman labor conditions, environmental degradation and human rights abuses an integral part of OUR economy — as vital to us today as slavery was to the Confederacy….
It was American corporations, hence their INVESTORS, as they flocked to the land of corporate welfare and cheap labor.
I’m neither Republican nor Democrat — this stuff should NOT be “buried in the back of the paper”. The Fourth Estate abandoned its mission years ago.
Self-victimization?
Alas. Ms. Pingree failed to negotiate a pre-nuptial agreement with her husband to sell off all his assets before she married him. Perhaps if the laws of our country were designed to actually encourage investment here, then more people would do it.
PS: … and Mr. Romney’s investments?
…then our laws would have to match those countries where “investment” is GOING. (i.e. authoritarian regimes that keep labor under control and feather a posh corporate nanny state). Is that what we want here? Business does! “Business” has voted with its feet…!
… or tax the bejesus out of imported products and offshore investments, thereby making offshore investment less profitable.
Good point. Why are we, as “citizens” allowing OUR public institutions to rely so heavily on the sort of inhuman behavior we reject for our own people?
It is really getting to be a waste of time to try to buy American when you have so many dirt bags working so hard to sell us out to China. Is there any hope for the hard working men and women of America? Is there anything we can do to stop these jerks from selling us down the river for fun and profit? How is it possible that 1% of the population of this country can destroy the American dream for the other 99% of us? What ever happened to majority rule? Princess Pingree-Sussman is just another example of what greed is doing to our country.
There absolutely IS “something we can do”, but NOT simply using our “consumer choices” or “letting the market decide”. When power follows money, rather than citizens themselves, well, we see the result… Be a citizen!
Okay, I’ll play along. How do you define being a citizen?
A citizen? …participation in power (Cicero) A consumer does simply that; consume. We have all but abandoned our civic freedom, in favor of “voting with your dollars” and “let the market decide” VERY undemocratic.
The good news is depending on how you look at it, we’ve been completely sold out to foreign interests by politicians and corporations, all sides and all interests, eureka for that balance. Like it or not China owns us and now is controlling our vote. Ain’t global capitalism wonderful and supply side economics da bomb. Continue to deregulate and let businesses make their own decisions because they will always do what’s right, right?
But my guess is everyone will just keep fighting over which side is right instead of trying to figure out how we can take our country back from the greedy bunch that controls the all of everything. One thing I’m sure of no party is capable of that type of change because they are so heavily invested in the status quo including the tea party.
Just to be fair to her. Take notice that all her “China” assets were part of the package he brought with him when she married her husband.
And Mitt has hidden his tax returns, why?
Don’t forget, Laura Bush killed a boy with her car while she was drunk.
Another liberal fantasy. Laura Welch Bush was involved in running a stop sign accident at age 17 in 1963 which resulted in the death of a passenger in the other vehicle. Police found no evidence of alcohol and she was not brought up on any charges.
I don’t think you want to go there – the world of fantasy, I mean. You can’t have it both ways – liberal, or conservative, fantasy abounds. Shall we talk about GW’s college days??
She was involved in? You mean she killed him.
A 17 year old is an adult in your empty mind. A boy lost his life to her neglagence and it is ok with republicans. So much for every life being so precious. Typical Romney lover. Just throw the dog on your car roof and drive from Maine to Maryland.
Her parents paid to keep her positive alcohol test out of the papers.
You run a stop sign and kill a boy while drunk and we’ll see if you get any charges.
“GOP rips ties to China businesses.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That’s a good one. And it’s amazing that the GOP NEVER lets the FACTS get in the way of one of their wound-up tirades. HYPOCRITES! Sussman is a REPUBLICAN, the financial assets ARE HIS. And all of this because “Maine Republican Party spokesman David Sorensen on Thursday cited a number of businesses on the list that he BELIEVES have links to China.” No proof, just his myopic belief. More distortion and lies from the GOP/TP.
What fanatsy world are you living in?
Portland Press Herald January 2, 2011
Sussman contributed about $1.3 million to causes championed by Maine Democrats in 2010. Since 2002, he has spent more than $3.6 million on candidates and ballot questions, and political action and party committees, according to reports filed with the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices. Sussman, who has owned homes in Maine for many years, made his first donation — to the Maine Democratic Party — in 1997.
His behavior is reprehensible, regardless of party.
Both sides are full of rich SOB’s whose only connection to the working class is the person who brings them coffee in the morning.
“Don’t throw rocks when you live in glass houses” applies in particular to the GOP. Pingree is small potatoes compared to Romney and his money parked in Cayman Islands, his income coming from overseas companies, his Bain Capital history. I would suggest that when you open a can of worms like this, you’d better be prepared for backlash.
Exactly, and if you would repeat verbatim what was said about Pingree about Romney, these people would screech about demonizing success and class warfare.
“In the US, there is basically one party – the business party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different but carry out variations on the same policies. By and large, I am opposed to those policies. As is most of the population.” ~Noam Chomsky
You got it! But try and educate the voter about that – good luck! What is it about the human mind that claims to be rational, but when it comes to voting, just falls off a cliff?!!!
There needs to be a means to put people in Congress that are not rich. Or we need to create a side-Congress and put people in that are selected as jury’s are. No matter what they say, no matter how they talk, the rich cannot fathom a family that has a car that needs to be inspected, a payment that needs to be made, and kid’s needing school clothes, and no money in the house. We need a side-Congress with voting rights. The people, WE THE PEOPLE, need to get back in control. I am not sure we would have ended up in Iraq if we had some cool heads that had been through the Vietnam mess. The Federal government is starving the States, so the States go after the poor, this has to stop. We need to figure out how to fund our government once again. The system is not broken, it is underfunded. The Feds are robbing the SS and PO to hide deficits. This must stop, the SS checks should be by all means twice of what they are. Nobody can retire on less than $2000.00 a month, and this is possible if the Fed gets it’s fingers out of the pie. This along would boost the economy.
I find this whole arguement regarding investments in Chinese companies a little comical. I am far from the 1%, get up every ,morning a 4:30 and go to work — 5-6 days a week. Over time like many others in the country I have saved some money which is invested to help with my retirement.
Where is most of this money invested ? In stock in Chinese corporations because that is where the profit is at the moment.
If I had even a portion of Mr Sussman’s or Mr Romney’ money it would be invested in China too.
Really? “Invest”
“Chinese corporations because that is where the profit is at the moment. ” Why on Earth do you think that is? …slave labor, environmental degradation and human rights abuses?
and sending the very job that presumably pays a living wage OVERSEAS so that YOUR children won’t have the same job you used to “save to help with your retirement”!!!
Way to see the big picture, Einstein……
Clearly these people are nothing but disgusting and phony hypocrites. I’m so sick of reading these statements full of faux outrage. It’s be one thing if it was based in principle, but it’s not. It’s simply about scoring political points.
Turnabout is fair play.
It’s not turnabout if you try and demonize her while engaging in the exact or similar behavior. I would be fair to point out her supposed hypocrisy by coupling a previous statement of hers with this, but that’s not what they’re doing. What their doing is fainting out of faux shock that a politician might have investments in China. There is a difference between that and turnabout.
The exact same argument can be made the other way. Calling these comments hypocritical is hypocritical….thus turnabout IS fair play.
I’ve already explained how it’s not turnabout. You can repeat your comment, but feigned outrage isn’t turnabout.
This article is about a democrat being accused of what republicans regularly get accused of by dems. There is alot of irony in that. Declaring this outrage faux shows your bias especially if you can’t see it. The shoe is on the other foot thus …a sudden, complete change of position or opinion……..turnabout.
Like I said before, they’re not point out that she has previously criticized this behavior. They’re pretending to be alarmed and disgusted that someone would engage in this behavior. That’s not turnabout, that’s feigned outrage.
so you say.
Is she serving lobster on her jet?