Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., stands ready to score $1 million in taxpayer dollars for a children's behavioral and mental health facility she defended in a rape case involving a minor.
According to The Washington Free Beacon, $1 million of the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package is earmarked for renovations to KidsPeace, a Pennsylvania nonprofit that Wild represented in a 2005 lawsuit filed by a former patient who claimed to have been raped by a hospital counselor.
Wild argued at the time that KidsPeace should not be responsible for a settlement payment to the patient because the rape was a "medical incident" that should be covered by its insurance policy. KidsPeace did not have a "crystal ball," Wild said, that would have allowed it to predict the counselor's "malfeasance," although the individual was previously charged in the suffocation death of a 12-year-old patient.
The earmark for KidsPeace is just one of $772.5 billion in non-defense discretionary spending that is listed in the 4,155 page omnibus bill passed by the Senate Thursday in a 68-29 vote. According to the Free Beacon, there is tens of millions more in funding for other lawmaker pet projects, including $477,000 in spending at Equity Labs for "antiracism virtual labs" and $3.6 million for the "Michelle Obama Trail" in Georgia.
Wild's association with KidsPeace was raised during her reelection race with Republican challenger Lisa Scheller, which she won by approximately 6,000 votes. According to the Free Beacon, a GOP group seized on Wild's support of KidsPeace and released a TV ad that told voters, "Wild is pushing for a million dollars in taxpayer money for the hospital – the same hospital that paid her."
The Pennsylvania Democrat slammed the GOP group for the ad spot, telling it to "shut up."
According to a letter released by the Keystone State congresswoman's office earlier this year, Wild chose KidsPeace from a pool of hundreds of applications submitted for consideration for congressional spending.
The chair of the House Ethics Committee told the House Appropriations Committee that she does not have a financial relationship with KidsPeace and did not disclose her past work for the organization, according to the Free Beacon.
A Facebook post from August 2019 revealed that Wild toured the KidsPeace Orchard Hills facility with KidsPeace lobbyist Caren Chaffee.
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