-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: July 6, 2007 7:26:41 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Crashing the Orgy -- Iran-Contra-Era "Good Ol' Boys" Will
Be Boys, Wink-Wink
Connect the dots: (1) Bush Administration (which includes Cheney's
neocons) uses the Justice Department to purge "disloyal" U.S.
attorneys like Carole Lam, who happens to be prosecuting the Duke
Cunningham GOP corruption-in-Congress case (involving taking bribes
from defense contractors for CIA and DoD deals); (2) The Cunningham
case widens, implicating high-ranking CIA officials and other
members of Congress who abused their positions, e.g., in Defense
Appropriations committees, to make millions for themselves, off the
books; (3) This "crime ring" has apparently operated for decades,
dating back to the time of Charlie Wilson, who MAY have been a
founding member of it, considering that it includes several of his
buddies on the committee (notably Jerry Lewis) from that period,
alongside a few of his cronies from the CIA during the same period
-- a period that saw the Iran-Contra scandal as well as backchannel
funding of what would soon become "Al Qaeda". (4) The "Israeli
lobby" appears to be as actively involved in the Cunningham case
(recalling Charlie Wilson's close ties to Mossad in Ari Ben
Menashe's time) as in the Abramoff scandal, and if this be true,
then we must consider the Cunningham and Abramoff cases to be more
broadly connected. (5) As long as neocons remain in control in the
Bush Administration, the White House, CIA and Justice Department do
everything possible to stonewall any investigation into where all
this might lead --as witness the Administration's destruction of e-
mail evidence and their last-ditch refusal to comply with
Congressional subpoenas. If the White House is insisting "there's
no 'there' there," it's a safe bet we're getting warmer, close to
the REAL "family jewels."
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=11655
Three decades ago, Bill Lowrey, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, and Brent
Wilkes were all members of the San Diego State University Young
Republicans. After Foggo joined the CIA and was sent to Central
America to fund the Contras, Lowery recruited fellow Young
Republican alum Wilkes to help ferry members of Congress down to
Central America for a close-up view of the action. While Foggo
helped provide the entertainment, Lowery led efforts to win
congressional support for the secretly financed war.
Their relationships have endured as their influence increased. For
years Wilkes has sponsored weekly poker parties in suites at the
Watergate and Westin Grand hotels, hosting Foggo's CIA friends
(including top aides to ex-CIA director Porter Goss), and former
members of Congress, notably including the famous Cold Warrior-
turned-lobbyist CHARLIE WILSON..
According to convicted Cunningham co-conspirator Mitchell Wade, the
guests sometimes included “escorts” ferried by a limousine company
that won a $21 million contract from the Department of Homeland
Security. The bribes from Wade provided Duke Cunningham with a
luxurious houseboat moored on the Potomac River, where the San
Diego congressman also threw raucous parties. With these excesses,
it was as if Wilkes and Foggo brought along with them an almost
Hollywood idea of Washington power. Meanwhile, they amassed
hundreds of millions of dollars from defense and intelligence
contracts.
GOP May Have Destroyed Scandal Evidence
By Justin Rood - January 23, 2007, 4:54 PM
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/cats/duke_cunningham/
How's this for protecting corruption in your ranks? A new article
in the Hill newspaper suggests that House Republicans hid for weeks
subpoenas from investigators probing the Cunningham scandal, and in
the process may have allowed evidence to be destroyed. To you and
me that's criminal obstruction; to Congress it's creative use of
policies and procedures. Federal investigators had asked nicely
last spring for documents from the House Committees on
Intelligence, Armed Services and Appropriations, but got nowhere.
House officials moaned they might have to shut down entirely to dig
up everything prosecutors wanted. Months went by, no documents
surfaced, so prosecutors sent subpoenas to the chairs of the three
committees, demanding the documents.
What happened next is unclear, because those who know won't tell.
But as The Hill's Susan Crabtree painstakingly details, it appears
that GOP leaders delayed reporting the subpoenas until the House
had closed up for the year, assuring that they would not become
public until the new year. Congress switched hands, and as the new
Democratic majority gained many staff positions to support their
leadership roles, Republicans lost many staff slots. As a result,
many Republican committee aides either lost their jobs or were
shuffled out to other Hill gigs.
What happened to their electronic files -- even if later they might
be subpoenaed by prosecutors? It appears they have either been
destroyed, or were given to the staffers to keep for themselves and
were "misplaced.". So the House Republican majority's parting gift
to the nation may have been to help obstruct one of the largest
corruption investigations in congressional history. Thanks, fellas.
-----------------
Cunningham Prosecutor Forced Out
By Justin Rood - January 12, 2007, 11:29 AM
The epic Duke Cunningham scandal gets weirder: Carole Lam, the San
Diego U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the corrupt former lawmaker, is
being quietly pushed out by the Bush administration. Lam's office
has recently been troubling the CIA and Capitol Hill by pushing for
documents related to the Cunningham investigation. According to
this morning's San Deigo Union-Tribune, the White House's reason
for giving her the axe is that she "failed to make smuggling and
gun cases a top priority." But most folks the paper talked to --
supporters and detractors -- said that sounded like a load of
hooey. A belated attempt at a cover-up? That doesn't quite fit.
It's not like the Cunningham investigation has earned a place in
the Great Scandal Prosecutions Hall of Fame. There have been signs
of trouble all along. There was the strange decision to throw him
in jail before ensuring he told everything he knew, as well as
evidence of poor coordination between the numerous federal agencies
involved in investigating the fiasco. If the administration for
some reason didn't want the truth to come out about what the
Cunningham scandal touched -- well, many folks thought all they had
to do was sit back and let the probes tangle themselves in knots.
The paper raises the possibility that Lam isn't the only U.S.
Attorney who's being pushed out. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) told
the paper in a statement, “We don't know how many U.S. Attorneys
have been asked to resign – it could be two, it could be ten, it
could be more. No one knows."
-------------
CIA Blocking Cunningham Investigation
By Justin Rood - January 9, 2007, 10:01 AM
The CIA is refusing to cooperate with federal prosecutors
investigating the Duke Cunningham scandal, the Wall Street
Journal's Scott Paltrow reports today. Before getting caught in
2005, Cunningham was involved in a sprawling corruption ring
connecting Congress and the national security community. The
scandal allegedly enjoyed the participation of current and former
CIA officials, including Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the executive director
of the agency. Foggo would be the highest-ranking CIA official to
be prosecuted in the agency's history, according to Paltrow.
Prosecutors had expected to indict Foggo several months ago, but
the Agency's refusal to declassify important documents has hampered
their efforts, Paltrow reports. Of course, prosecutors haven't
received much help from Congress with their investigation, either.
Last month they were forced to serve subpoenas to several powerful
committees in an effort to force them to turn over documents.
Foggo's indictment -- and possible plea bargain -- would be a
notable triumph for the Feds. For many months the case has
stagnated, and observers have wondered if the investigation was
hopelessly compromised. Nailing Foggo would also be important for
prosecutors, as it would give them leverage to go after alleged
Cunningham briber Brent Wilkes. Wilkes, who ran a government
contracting business, was close with Foggo and is said to have
worked closely with him. Despite being identified by Cunningham as
a major briber, Wilkes has refused to plead guilty or cooperate
with prosecutors.
----------------------
Cunningham, Felon Met With Saudi Crown Prince
By Justin Rood - April 17, 2006, 1:06 PM
Over the weekend, a new profile by Copley News Service added to our
understanding of former GOP Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's "Co-
conspirator #3," the mysterious Thomas Kontogiannis. Today, we can
add a bit more. Recall that Kontogiannis bribed Cunningham through
purchasing a yacht from the congressman -- and paying several
hundred thousand dollars more than it was worth. His finance
company also handled some of Cunningham's questionable mortgages.
But reporters and investigators have struggled to understand what
Kontogiannis was getting from Duke for all the money he spent on
the lawmaker. The latest theory seems to be that Duke was
introducing him to world leaders. As Copley reports:
Cunningham "introduced him to people. It was like he had a
congressman on retainer," [a Justice Department official] added.
The Copley story notes that he twice accompanied Cunningham to the
White House, and kept a picture of himself meeting President Bush
in his house. Now, TPMmuckraker has learned he apparently met the
man who would shortly become king of Saudi Arabia. It's been known
that Kontogiannis, a wealthy businessman and two-time felon, in
2004 accompanied Cunningham and a Saudi constituent, San Diego real
estate mogul Ziyad Abduljawad, to Saudi Arabia. Rep. Ken Calvert (R-
CA) also went. Abduljawad paid for the trip. Until now, we haven't
known much about the trip -- who the group met with, why, what they
talked about. Cunningham is said to have gone in order to promote
U.S.-Saudi ties, or some other such pap. Beyond that, we've had
nothing. I called Calvert last week to ask him more about the trip.
(He's the only one of the crew who's talking these days:
Cunningham's in the pen, Abduljawad declined an interview, Tommy
K's lawyer doesn't return calls.) Calvert's memory wasn't perfect,
but he had some details to share. The group met with Saudi Crown
Prince Abdullah -- then the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, and now
its king. Kontogiannis was at the meeting, Calvert recalled,
although "he didn't say anything, as I remember," the lawmaker told
me. Copley now tells us its sources say Tommy K's purpose "appeared
to center on an oil business he owned in Europe." That's not much
to go on. The group also met with "ministers of various government
institutions within Saudi Arabia," Calvert said. He recalled
Kontogiannis being present for "some" of those meetings. As for
what was discussed, Calvert recalled only that a number of the
ministers pressed Cunningham to help ease post-9/11 restrictions on
student visas for Saudis. With Abdullah, Calvert said the
discussion was "primarily social," and "trying to build a better
relationship with the United States." Now a U.S. citizen,
Kontogiannis is worth about $70 million, Copley reporter Joe
Cantlupe tells us. He spent over $300,000 on Cunningham. "What
Kontogiannis, 59, got from the relationship with Cunningham remains
unclear," Cantlupe writes, but notes that the businessman visited
the White House twice with the Duke. And now we know they visited
the Saudi crown prince together also. Was that it? He bought
Cunningham -- a well-positioned but hardly towering member of the
U.S. House -- to meet world leaders?
-------------------
MZM on Both Sides of Pentagon "Secret Police" Merger
By Justin Rood - April 13, 2006, 2:25 PM
Newsweek's Mark Hosenball has an interesting and important new
article noting that the Pentagon is considering the merger of two
security offices, raising fears that they are creating a "military
secret police" with too much information and too much power. But
there's more to the story. Hosenball reports that one of the
outfits is CIFA -- Counterintelligence Field Activity -- which has
gotten into hot water for spying on Americans engaged in political
protests, among other things. MZM held numerous contracts with that
operation, thanks to the earmarking efforts of Rep. Randy "Duke"
Cunningham, who took $1.4 million in bribes from MZM's founder,
admitted felon Mitchell Wade. The other outfit is the Defense
Security Service, which handles security clearances and sensitive
personal information for 4.5 million defense and intelligence
workers. According to Newsweek, DSS has turned down several
inappropriate requests from CIFA for sensitive information on
individuals. What Newsweek doesn't mention is that MZM had
employees working at DSS as well as CIFA. In fact, the company
continues to provide employees to DSS under its new name, Athena
Innovative Solutions, according to news accounts and former
employees. MZM provided around 30 employees to the center, a
onetime MZM employee told me. Rep. Katherine Harris' (R-FL) former
scheduler, Mona Tate Yost, was in their number, Florida's Lakeland
Ledger reported last month. Here are some interesting questions: if
DSS has rejected "a handful" of inappropriate requests from CIFA,
how many has it allowed? How many requests went from one MZM
employee at CIFA to one at DSS? And how did MZM, which had no
federal contracts until 2002, manage to place handfuls of employees
in some of the country's most sensitive defense and intelligence
operations?
---------------------------
April 28, 2006
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/004069.html
It turns out one of the Watergate poker parties I had heard was
covered in the 90s by the Post was actually reported by an Atlanta
Journal Constitution journalist and pal of Charlie Wilson's back in
1994. Here is "A Fun Bunch of Guys When the (poker) Chips Are Down,
Depend on Your CIA to Be There," by Joe Murray, Atlanta Journal
Constitution, May 20, 1994:
WASHINGTON - The CIA plays for high stakes. Some of the pots are
close to $ 1,000.
For these agents, international intrigue isn't the only game in
town. Once a week, in a suite at the Watergate Hotel, they play
poker. I'm not sure how they chose the Watergate. Perhaps because
of a sense of history. Either that or a sense of humor.
Playing cards, these fellows are a bunch of cards. Funny? You
wouldn't believe it. I'm telling you, they'll kill you.
I stopped by the game with my old friend, Charlie Wilson, the Texas
congressman from my home town. Charlie is a CIA kind of guy. He
rode with the rebels in Afghanistan's revolt against the Soviets. A
year ago, he received the CIA's "Honored Colleague" medal, first
time ever that it went to anyone outside the agency.
A book written by "60 Minutes" producer George Crile is soon to be
published about Charlie's exploits. A movie deal is also in the
works. Harrison Ford supposedly is interested. Maybe there'll be a
role for me. Is Smiley Burnett still around?
Meanwhile, I was getting to know his CIA pals. I was meeting
Charlie in the lobby of the Watergate. He said to be sure to wait
for him.
"Don't go up to the desk and ask where the CIA poker game is," he
warned. "Then they'd have to take care of you."
I asked, exactly, what he meant by take care of me.
"Oh, nothing elaborate. Probably they'd just dress you in a chef's
uniform and say you were some Hungarian cook who suffered a heart
attack."
Charlie laughed loudly. I laughed weakly.
It turned out they were a great bunch of fellows. For one thing,
they smoke cigars. Never mind that the suite is on a no-smoking
floor. We hit it off right away.
Charlie brought gifts as well, a sack full of pistols that included
a Soviet automatic used by Russian paratroopers. "Note that it's
bored for a silencer," Charlie said. They nodded approvingly.
Everybody was given pens, the kind that are definitely mightier
than the sword. Instead of ink cartridges, these carry .32
cartridges. Pop the end and you pop the enemy.
All of a sudden everybody in the room started snapping their pens.
I started to duck.
"How's it work?"
"Oh, this is great!"
"Boy, I wish I'd had it this afternoon."
"If only Aldrich Ames were here."
Funny? You wouldn't believe it.
Charlie and I didn't stay long. But I had the opportunity to ask
them about world hot spots. I'd been a few places where they go.
Tbilisi, in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, for instance.
One of the agents looks Russian and, on occasion, is Russian. I
asked him if Georgia's ousted leader, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, was
really dead. Supposedly he committed suicide. "Gamsakhurdia is
really dead," he said.
As I was leaving, they offered me one of their cigars, a Dominican.
I offered them one of mine, a Cuban.
"Geez! Take our whole box," I was told.
The agent added, "You know, of course, this is considered
contraband. But you've done the right thing as a good citizen.
You've turned it in to the proper government agency. Be assured
that very shortly it will be destroyed by fire."
Interesting. Now we know a bit more: the Watergate suite was
presumably paid for by Wilkes. The poker parties were happening
every week, for years. At least among congressmen Charlie Wilson
was a regular. And some folks from the CIA. Interesting.
Also heard tonight there was a third hotel between the Wilkes-era
at the Watergate and the Wilkes-epoch at the Westin Grand: a time
period in the late 1990s when he rented space at the Capital Hilton.
It's funny, from the moment Cunningham pled guilty in November, I
remember thinking about the particular Congressional subcommittees
he was on and how it made me think of Charlie Wilson's position on
the defense appropriations subcommittee and how much secret power
he had from that perch. Here's what I wrote at the time back in
November:
If you've read Charlie Wilson's War, you might remember how
powerful was the subcommittee that both Wilson and until today,
Randy "Duke" Cunningham, sat on, the House Appropriations committee
subcommittee on defense. As I remember from the book, that
subcommittee was aggressively courted not just by defense
contractors, but by lobbyists for foreign governments interested in
swinging US defense spending in certain directions. It is really
where the checks are signed, and decisions about funding sometimes
wholly undebated aspects of US national security policy are made.
What I'm wondering is, is the Cunningham story one of just simple
corruption, or is there more to it? Was he bought just to help
steer contracts to MZM, or was there other stuff going on? Stuff
that had policy implications?
The pattern is interesting, and not only for what it says about
Cunningham: it speaks also about the ends of the people who
cultivated him. Was the Wilkes/Wade operation wholly just about
making a lot of money, or something else? Why does Wilkes seem from
so early on to be so connected to elements of the CIA? There's his
long friendship with Foggo, including when Wilkes accompanied Foggo
to Central America (Honduras, el Salvador, Panama) when Foggo was
reportedly a CIA money man funding the contras during Iran Contra;
and Wilkes would bring down mostly right-wing congressmen from
Washington for a front-row view of the action. There are hints that
at least Wilkes considered himself a kind of de facto CIA adjunct
or associate, a friend of the Cold War era Agency, particularly in
Central America. Perhaps it was useful too for the CIA to have
friends in Wilkes' position, in private companies, who, as the San
Diego Trib wrote, knew how to grease the wheels. And useful to all
of them were a few key congressmen, needed to authorize the funding
to pay for it.
See what's free at AOL.com.
www.ctrl.org
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