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The Cunningham case has revealed several lawmakers worthy of investigative scrutiny. Two men described but not named as co-conspirators in the original indictment — Brent Wilkes, the chairman of San Diego-based defense contractor ADCS Inc., and Mitchell J. Wade, the founder and until recently chairman and president of defense and intelligence contractor MZM Inc. — donated "more than a million dollars in the last ten years to a roster of politicians," including contributions from their employees and company political action committees (PACs), according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In some instances, those donations seemed to track closely with appropriations recommendations from politicians that benefited Wilkes' and Wade's companies.
Among the pols of potential interest to investigators is Representative Tom DeLay, whose Texans for a Republican Majority fund-raising committee received a $15,000 donation in September 2002 from Perfect Wave Technologies, a subsidiary of Wilkes' corporate umbrella, the Wilkes Corporation. Through another Wilkes' subsidiary, Perfect Wave also hired a lobbying firm, Alexander Strategy Group, set up by DeLay's former Chief of Staff Ed Buckham, and which employed DeLay's wife Christine, to lobby successfully for Perfect Wave to receive a Navy contract. In December, the Austin, Texas, District Attorney Ronnie Earle — already pursuing a campaign-finance case against DeLay — subpoenaed documents from Wilkes, Perfect Wave Technologies, ADCS, and associated companies. Popping up again on the radar as well is Congressman Bob Ney, the Ohio Republican who, like DeLay, is simultaneously under investigation in the rapidly expanding Indian gaming case that has led to guilty pleas by lobbyist Jack Abramoff and PR Executive Michael Scanlon. On October 1, 2002, Ney inexplicably entered praise of a San Diego-based charity headed by Wilkes, the Tribute to Heroes Foundation, into the Congressional Record — the same kind of service Ney performed for his benefactor Abramoff on more than one occasion.
Extensive reporting published by the San Diego Union-Tribune indicates that several other Republicans in southern California's congressional delegation may have drawn the attention of investigators in the Cunningham case. Among them are Representative Duncan Hunter, identified by a Defense Department Inspector General report — along with Cunningham — as actively intervening with the Pentagon to try to award a contract to a document-conversion company that had given him tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions for a program the Pentagon did not request or consider a priority; Representative Jerry Lewis, chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, on which Cunningham sat; and former Congressman-turned-lobbyist Bill Lowery.
As the San Diego Union-Tribune reported in December, "Lewis has green lighted hundreds of millions of dollars in federal projects for clients of … Lowery. Meanwhile, Lowery, the partners at his firm, and their clients have donated 37 percent of the $1.3 million that Lewis' political action committee received in the past six years. … exchanged two key staff members, making their offices so intermingled that they seem to be extensions of each other."
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