Kirsten Gillibrand, New York’s junior senator, doesn’t just flip-flop on is sues as convenient — she also revises her past.
Voters, beware: Gillibrand is a chameleon on plaid, a woman who has and will do anything, say anything, forget anything, spin anything to get elected.
Her 180-degree reversals on gun control, gay marriage and immigration — making her one of the most liberal members of the Senate — are old news. But that’s far from the only way she remakes herself, as we discuss in our new book, “2010: Take Back America.”
Start with her habit of censoring her own history in campaign biographies. Before she got elected to Congress, Gillibrand had spent 14 years as a lawyer in private practice, and just one year working at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Yet her first campaign biography stated: “Throughout her career, Gillibrand has demonstrated her commitment to public service.” That from a woman who spent one year of her 15-year career in government work.
But it’s easy to see why she wants to cover up, especially, her nine years at the New York law firm of Davis, Polk — because her work there involved years of defending tobacco giant Philip Morris against charges of criminal perjury and fraud.
In 1994, top Philip Morris executives had sworn before Congress that they had no knowledge of the addictive or cancer-causing qualities of tobacco, even though their internal documents directly contradicted them. And it was Gillibrand’s job to keep those incriminating records from federal prosecutors.
When her efforts for Philip Morris finally came to light last year, Gillibrand lied about why she did the work — claiming that as a mere associate at the firm, she had no choice but to take the work assigned to her.
Sorry: Davis, Polk had a clear policy permitting employees to decline any case that raised personal ethical or moral issues. Gillibrand apparently had none — but she didn’t want us to know that.
Yet, while Gillibrand prefers to downplay all these connections, they remain quite useful to her: Her former law firms and Altria Group — the new name for Philip Morris — have been major sources of donations to her campaigns.
Excising Davis, Polk from her résumé obliged her to emphasize that year at HUD. Thus, in 2006, she proudly touted her “key role” in furthering HUD’s “new market initiatives.”
Oops — these were the Clinton/Cuomo policies that required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to vastly increase the number of loans they purchased that involved low-income borrowers. Borrowers who couldn’t afford the mortgages. Borrowers who were given subprime mortgages. Borrowers who are now facing foreclosure. That’s the great work Gillibrand was involved in at HUD.
But she quickly covered herself. Once the subprime crisis became a household word and banks began to fail, in large part because of these very policies, Gillibrand simply deleted that section from her biography. The “new market initiatives” went the way of Philip Morris.
Gillibrand has another reason to distance herself from policies that helped cause the mortgage mess — namely, the fact that she profited from the meltdown. Her husband, Jonathan, seems to have greatly increased the family’s wealth in 2007 by betting that the mortgage market would tank.
In that year, he bought “puts” on such subprime lenders as Countrywide, IndyMac, Downey Financial, Bank United Financial and Accredited Home Lenders — meaning that he’d gain if they declined, as they did. He sold many of the puts that fall, largely at a profit — since the Gillibrands reported more than $40,000 in capital gains that year.
How would those of her constituents who lost money in bank and home stocks feel about the senator’s family investments?
Kirsten Gillibrand will change any position, reinvent herself, erase her past — do anything to win election to the Senate. She plainly thinks the voters are idiots who will fall for her ridiculous stories, spins and lies. Here’s hoping the voters show her who’s really the idiot.
Adapted by Dick Morris and Ei leen McGann from “2010: Take Back America,” released this week by HarperCollins Publishers.