He ALWAYS bragged he was the poorest member, the lunchbox joe who humbly rode Amtrak every day and made it home in the even .In his younger days he aptly mimicked his superiors opinions because he had none of his own.
His unfortunate home grown bigotry and rascism was on display during the Clarence
Thomas SCOTUS heatings as a viperous ssnake in the grass amony many other bigoted attitudes he has always carried.
imo he has alwsys acted as if the loudness of his voice or his on display negative speechifying are somehow related to “ power”.
This sad soul has a problem telling the truth, too- past & present.
Now we hear of the evoked memory of a fraudulent, spineless old man “reminiscing”in full blown dementia.
It was his meme and still is.
For one I would love to know what pitched him over to use his govt position in acquiring wealth dishonestly; the one event.
Of course I wouldn't know the one event. But I can speculate. And it might be this very story.
As I indicated in my initial post -- if a newspaper told the world that Joe was the poorest man in Congress, and if Dr. Jill saw that and went ballistic, and Dr.Jill read him the riot act, and if Dr. Jill demanded that he find a way to start making some real money -- that might have driven him to use his govt position to acquire money dishonestly.
Joe has told this basic story many times. It seems to be burned into his brain, and has been for decades. That newspaper telling the world how poor he was seems to have been a defining moment in his life. Maybe everything changed after that.