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Cunningham Got Millions in Bribes From Two Contractors    [

    Congress Aides Ignored Bribery Signs: Report
    By Andy Sullivan
    Reuters

    Tuesday 17 October 2006

    Washington - Congressional aides ignored numerous warning signs about disgraced former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's cozy relationship with contractors who paid him millions in bribes, a report released on Tuesday said.

    The report by the US House Intelligence Committee found no evidence that staffers benefited from any of the bribes taken by Cunningham, the California Republican now serving an eight-year prison term after pleading guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes.

    But staffers ignored several warning signs as they helped Cunningham obtain funding for a project earmarked for MZM, a company run by Mitchell Wade, who has pleaded guilty to bribing Cunningham.

    "Over time, (committee) staff learned of numerous 'red flags' associated with the counterintelligence project, including frequently expressed questions about the ethics and integrity of Wade, doubts about the value of the project and MZM's performance, and grave concerns about the propriety of the Cunningham-Wade relationship," the report said.

    Committee staff helped Cunningham avoid competitive bidding rules to steer at least $70 million to Wade and another contractor, the report said.

    The outside investigator who wrote the report for the committee said the Defense Department and the House Appropriations Committee have so far declined to cooperate.

    The report was completed in May but has been kept under wraps while committee members argued whether Cunningham should be subpoenaed.

    It was finally made public by California Rep. Jane Harman, the committee's top Democrat, who has pushed for Cunningham to appear before the committee, even if he refuses to testify.

    "Our committee must examine why 'red flags' did not trigger greater scrutiny of Cunningham's activities and what can be done to prevent this type of abuse in the future," Harman said in a statement.

    The Republican chairman of the committee, Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, said Cunningham has offered to testify and blasted Harman for releasing the report without his permission.

    "The unilateral decision by Harman to break our bipartisan, written agreement ... by releasing an incomplete, internal committee document that has not been reviewed by the other committee members is disturbing and beyond the pale," Hoekstra said in a statement.

 

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    Cunningham Got Millions in Bribes From Two Contractors
    The Associated Press

    Tuesday 17 October 2006

    Washington - Disgraced former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham parlayed his seat on the Intelligence Committee into at least $70 million in business for two contractors who in turn paid him millions in bribes, an investigator hired by the panel has concluded.

    The investigator's report, released Tuesday by the committee's top Democrat, found that Cunningham had exploited weaknesses in the system for monitoring secret federal spending.

    It said that he and at least one associate secured the cooperation - or at least the acquiescence - of many people. They included members of Congress and their aides who handled bills that directed money to certain programs, Pentagon officials who awarded the contracts and officials at agencies where the contract work was done.

    "This was a lot of people to persuade, cajole, deceive, pressure, intimidate, bribe or otherwise influence to do what they wanted," the report's executive summary says.

    In a sign of partisan divisions on the committee, California Rep. Jane Harman, its top Democrat, unilaterally released the five-page document after months of disagreement with the committee's chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich. Together, the two had initiated the investigation, led by special counsel Michael Stern, and had hoped to release the findings jointly.

    Harman said the committee must examine why "red flags" did not trigger greater scrutiny of Cunningham's activities, and she added that she and Hoekstra had worked on internal changes that must be made permanent. "The goal should be to make certain that no Cunningham of either party should be able to soil our committee again," Harman said in an interview.

    Hoekstra said Cunningham's efforts to enrich himself are "reprehensible" and Harman's decision to release an internal committee document "is disturbing and beyond the pale." Her action "underscores her personal decision to politicize the committee and this critical inquiry," he said.

    Now serving a sentence of more than eight years, Cunningham pleaded guilty in November to accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes from alleged coconspirators - government contractors Mitchell Wade and Brent Wilkes.

    Wade, former president of MZM Inc., has also pleaded guilty to lavishing Cunningham with a yacht, cash, cars, antiques and meals over four years. Wilkes, who has not been charged, was the founder of San Diego-based ADCS Inc.

    Cunningham's attorney, Lee Blalack, and Wade's attorney, Reginald Brown, both declined to comment on the report. Blalack said the committee has not provided him a copy of the document, and Brown said he and his client weren't contacted for the investigation.

    Wilkes' attorney did not immediately return a call for comment.

    The House Intelligence Committee is charged with laying out intelligence spending priorities in an annual authorization bill, based on requests from lawmakers and government agencies. It then falls to the House Appropriations Committee, where Cunningham was also a member, to approve the spending.

    Intelligence authorization bills are often quite broad, but some members are skilled at steering money to certain businesses.

    The investigators found the committee authorized $70 million to $80 million in funding over five years that had been requested by Cunningham on behalf of Wilkes and Wade. When the legislation did not specify that the money go to companies associated with the two contractors, Cunningham still found ways to steer the funds by making his views known or using narrowly tailored language.

    In one case spanning three years, Cunningham got the committee to direct to MZM a contract with a Pentagon unit called Counterintelligence Field Activity, despite aides' worries that it was a "pork barrel project and a waste of taxpayer money," the report says.

    The investigators found that the committee's ability to conduct oversight of the work "appears to have been seriously impeded by the corrupt conspiracy between Cunningham and Wade."

    The executive summary also acknowledges questions that remain unanswered:

• Stern's request to interview Cunningham has never been fulfilled. Harman and Hoekstra wanted to subpoena him, but Hoekstra didn't want to issue a subpoena only to have Cunningham invoke his Fifth Amendment protections, as his attorney has warned he would do. Hoekstra said discussions are continuing about Cunningham's testimony.
  
  
• Stern said "significant information" has remained out of reach. The House Appropriations Committee did not respond to requests to interview some of its staff, and follow-up requests to the Pentagon regarding some of its contracts have not been met.
  
  
• The report sees a need for law enforcement and national security agencies to examine Cunningham's dealings with foreigners. "While our review has not identified any national security breaches resulting from the Cunningham conspiracy, we are aware of dealings that that Cunningham had with certain foreign nationals," it said.

    The investigations into Cunningham, Wade and Wilkes have included a number of figures whose alleged roles are only slowly coming into focus. They include the former No. 3 official at the CIA, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who retired this year under a cloud. Five federal agencies are looking into whether he used his position to improperly award classified CIA contracts to Wilkes, a close friend, and to others.

    The report says more investigation is needed into Foggo's dealings with the intelligence panel, given his close relationship with former committee aide Brant Bassett. The investigator highlighted a June 2003 dinner with Bassett, Foggo, Wilkes and an unnamed individual at a Capitol Hill steakhouse.

    The report said the unnamed individual managed a company that is involved in the investigation into whether Foggo abused his position. Through CIA spokespeople, Foggo has denied wrongdoing.

    Foggo and Bassett tried to motivate other committee aides with "gifts of government trinkets such as carpets emblazoned with the words 'Global War on Terror,"' the report said. "At this stage, it is unclear whether these actions violated any law or regulation, but further inquiry is appropriate."

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    Associated Press writers Allison Hoffman in San Diego and Erica Werner in Washington contributed to this report.