“Duke” of Deception
The overlooked security implications of the Cunningham scandalBy Laura Rozen
Issue Date: 02.05.06
On its face, the corruption scandal involving California Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, the former Vietnam War ace fighter pilot who pled guilty in November to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors and others seeking his favors, would not seem to have the elements of a decent spy novel. As the story of a congressman for sale -- a staunch Republican and former Navy “top gun” sitting on the House Intelligence and Appropriations Committees -- the Duke’s downfall looks like just another case of Capitol Hill corruption, albeit on an outlandish scale.
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On January 6, 2006, Time magazine reported that in the days before Cunningham’s plea agreement was publicly announced, he had been wearing a concealed recording device. “The identity of those with whom the San Diego congressman met while wearing the wire remains unclear, and is the source of furious -- and nervous -- speculation by congressional Republicans,” Time wrote. To whom had Cunningham led the FBI as part of his cooperation agreement? A recent story in the Los Angeles Times cited Cunningham’s attorney, K. Lee Blalack, as saying Cunningham had not recorded any other “public officials,” but declined to clarify whether he had recorded others. The implication of the two reports is clear: Prosecutors have further targets in their crosshairs beyond Cunningham. In law enforcement, the standard procedure is for prosecutors to haul in the little fish first in order to net the big fish later. So there was something peculiar about the Cunningham case, where such normal logic had seemingly been turned on its head. Here the big fish -- a ranking Representative -- had pled guilty before the businessmen from whom he had admitted taking bribes. What the Time report suggests was that Cunningham might not be the biggest fish in this case after all.
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The third alleged co-conspirator in the Cunningham plea agreement, Thomas T. Kontogiannis, a Long Island–based, Greek-born financier and real-estate developer, was picked up in Athens by the private plane flying Cunningham and Calvert to Saudi Arabia in December 2004. Accompanying the group -- and paying for the trip -- was Ziyad S. Abduljawad, a naturalized American of Saudi origin living in San Diego. Calvert’s press spokesman told the Prospect that no staff members went on the trip, during which the congressmen met with “the former Crown Prince, who is now King,” as well as several other Saudi ministers and business leaders.
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A close reading of the 33-page Cunningham plea agreement raises troubling questions about the relationships that connect Wilkes, Wade, Kontogiannis, and those whom the Cunningham plea agreement describes as “others.” The indictment describes multiple instances when Wilkes and Wade used companies owned by Kontogiannis and his wife’s nephew essentially as the banking vehicles to launder bribes to Cunningham through the purchase of real estate, boats, and other valuables. In other words, Wilkes and Wade would seem to have had some degree of knowledge of Kontogiannis being central to the corruption scheme. While we know how companies belonging to Wilkes and Wade benefited from their bribes to Cunningham -- with several hundred millions of dollars in sensitive U.S. government contracts -- it is still opaque what precisely Kontogiannis got out of the Cunningham arrangement. One is left to wonder what other interests Kontogiannis may have been representing, interests which could have benefited from his favors to Cunningham in ways that have not yet been revealed.
In short, who is investigating the counterintelligence implications of this case to protect against potential breaches of U.S. national security?
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=10823
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