From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   For an Ailing Feinstein, a Fight Over the Family Fortune   
   By Tim Arango and Shawn Hubler, Aug. 3, 2023, NY Times   
   For years, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California has been engaged in a long   
   and painful public drama about her health and ability to do her job, as she   
   winds down a storied career as a lawmaker and a former mayor of San Francisco.   
      
   Now, Senator Feinstein is also navigating an increasingly bitter legal and   
   financial conflict that pits her and her daughter, Katherine Feinstein,   
   against the three daughters of her late husband Richard C. Blum, who was a   
   wealthy financier.   
      
   In one legal dispute, the family is fighting over what’s described as   
   Senator Feinstein’s desire to sell a beach house in an exclusive   
   neighborhood in Stinson Beach, north of San Francisco. In another   
   disagreement, the two factions are at odds over    
   access to the proceeds of Mr. Blum’s life insurance, which Senator Feinstein   
   says she needs to pay for her growing medical expenses.   
      
   For those close to Senator Feinstein, the struggle over Mr. Blum’s estate   
   has exacerbated a recent and regrettable chapter that has marred the twilight   
   of a long and successful public life and that has raised concerns about her   
   ability to manage her    
   own affairs.   
      
   “The financial conflict is another element that makes the end of her career   
   sad to people who have known her in the high points of her career,” said   
   Jerry Roberts, author of the biography “Dianne Feinstein: Never Let Them See   
   You Cry.” It was    
   published in 1994, two years after she was elected to the Senate.   
      
   Raised in affluence, Senator Feinstein has long been among the wealthiest   
   members of Congress. She was rich in her own right in 1980 when she married   
   Mr. Blum. After she entered the Senate, she placed securities into a blind   
   trust that is valued at    
   between $5 million and $25 million, according to her most recent financial   
   disclosure required of lawmakers.   
      
   Combined, the couple’s fortunes flourished to an extent that eclipsed even   
   the senator’s prior standard of living. Her main residence is a   
   9,500-square-foot mansion in the upscale San Francisco neighborhood of Pacific   
   Heights. Their vacation homes,    
   until recently, included the 36-acre Bear Paw Ranch in Aspen, Colo., which   
   sold in March for more than $25 million, and a seven-bedroom Lake Tahoe   
   compound that sold in late 2021 for a reported $36 million. Current holdings   
   include a property on the    
   Hawaii island of Kauai and a home in Washington, D.C.   
      
   Among the backdrops to the fight over Mr. Blum’s estate, however, are   
   questions about the extent of his fortune, as well as the out-of-pocket cost   
   of home health care that Senator Feinstein has received since her bout with   
   shingles earlier this year.   
      
   During his lifetime, Mr. Blum, Senator Feinstein’s third husband and a   
   private equity magnate, was often referred to in public accounts as a   
   billionaire. However, people familiar with the family’s finances dispute   
   that characterization and say that    
   Mr. Blum’s wealth was less than some heirs had expected. Mr. Blum’s   
   friends said that the pandemic cut deeply into his investments, particularly   
   his extensive holdings in hotels.   
      
   Senator Feinstein, 90 and in her sixth term in the Senate, has long been in   
   frail health with increasing memory and cognition issues. When she returned to   
   work earlier this year after a monthslong absence because of shingles and   
   various complications,    
   her further decline shocked colleagues. She has relied on a cadre of aides in   
   order to function in the Senate, even as she has resisted calls to relinquish   
   her seat before her term expires after next year’s election.   
      
   Katherine Feinstein, 66, Senator Feinstein’s only child, who has power of   
   attorney over her mother’s legal affairs, filed two lawsuits against Senator   
   Feinstein’s co-trustees. The first lawsuit, over the beach house, says the   
   property is in    
   disrepair, that Senator Feinstein no longer wishes to use it, and that she   
   wants to sell it this summer or fall.   
      
   Earlier in her career, the beach house offered a special refuge from the   
   rough-and-tumble world of politics, and she retreated there after losing the   
   1990 race for governor of California. The three-bedroom home facing Bolinas   
   Lagoon occupies nearly a    
   half-acre of sand in a gated community whose residents over the years have   
   ranged from old-money San Franciscans and hippie artists to celebrities like   
   the novelist Danielle Steel and members of The Grateful Dead. In May, a house   
   of comparable size in    
   the same community sold for more than $6 million.   
      
   The suit also accused Mr. Blum’s daughters of seeking to use the beach house   
   at Senator Feinstein’s expense and to limit her ability to sell off parts of   
   the trust in order to increase the value of their inheritance after Senator   
   Feinstein’s death.   
      
   The second lawsuit, which challenges whether the trustees were properly   
   appointed, concerns Mr. Blum’s life insurance proceeds and claims that the   
   funds, which are supposed to be disbursed through a trust, have been held back   
   by the trustees. The suit    
   says that Senator Feinstein has “incurred significant medical expenses”   
   and that despite Mr. Blum’s “intent to support his spouse after his death,   
   the purported trustees have refused to make distributions to reimburse Senator   
   Feinstein’s    
   medical expenses.”   
      
   In response, a Bay Area lawyer representing the two trustees — Michael R.   
   Klein, a longtime lawyer for Mr. Blum, and Marc T. Scholvinck, who was chief   
   financial officer of Mr. Blum’s private equity firm — said the two had   
   never refused to pay any    
   money to Senator Feinstein. The lawyer, Steven P. Braccini, also suggested   
   that Katherine Feinstein, a former Superior Court judge in San Francisco who   
   is now on the city’s fire commission, was acting out of personal interests   
   and not out of those of    
   her mother.   
      
   “My clients are perplexed by this filing,” Mr. Braccini said in a   
   statement. “Richard Blum’s trust has never denied any disbursement to   
   Senator Feinstein, let alone for medical expenses.”   
      
   Katherine Feinstein did not respond to requests for comment.   
      
      
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