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Old 05-06-2006, 02:22 PM   #1 (permalink)
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Why did Goss resign?

It's been a whole day since his resignation was announced and I'm still no clearer on why exactly Goss resigned. There are plenty of theories and I just wanted to get a sense of what people here think is most likely.

Was Goss always just a "transitional figure" who would shake up the CIA, perhaps on ideological grounds, and then hand over control to someone like Hayden?

Was he just overwhelmed by his job, as he has previously suggested in interviews, leading President Bush to lose confidence in him?

Was he just unhappy with his reduced role after the creation of the National Director of Intelligence?

Was he forced to resign as a result of his possible involvement in the Duke Cunningham scandal, which was reported just days earlier?

Or was it something else altogether that I've overlooked?
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Old 05-06-2006, 07:50 PM   #2 (permalink)
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Try reading my post.....it's "hard work", but I'm usually posting relevant info ahead of the disclosures. Goss resigned immediately, with no notice. <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/415304p-350961c.html">The NY Daily News</a> is reporting that #3 at CIA, Foggo, is under investigation by federal authorities and may be about to be indicted. Foggo was Cunningham briber #1's, (Wilkes) high school chum, they were best men at each others weddings, and named their kids after each other. Foggo was a CIA middle manager appointed by Goss, out of obscurity at the agency, over much higher ranked and more experienced candidates......by Goss....

Here's the link:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...2&postcount=12

My first post about the Foggo appointment was last Dec. 16, here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...0&postcount=13

Goss gutted the experienced hands out of the agency (we have no experience covert section management, as a result) as part of a campaign to assure partisan "purity" of agency employees. IMO, the true agenda is to transfer all signifigant intelligence operations to the Pentagon, under <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200605060001">"I am not in the intelligence business"</a>, Rumsfeld, because defense intelligence do not report to congressional oversight committees, as the CIA was supposed to.......

Last edited by host; 05-06-2006 at 08:00 PM..
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Old 05-06-2006, 09:05 PM   #3 (permalink)
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Try reading my post...the Cunningham thing is one of the possibilities listed.

Are you trying to say that there is no other possibility and that this scandal is definitely the reason for Goss's resignation? I don't think there's enough evidence to say that right now. Larry Johnson, who is quoted in one of your links and is a prominent Bush adminstration critic, has written that his sources say that Goss is clean on this count and might be guilty of no more than making a bad hire. While I suspect there might be more to it, I haven't seen any evidence to prove that.

Also, there are some reports that the resignation was not immediate and without notice: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000570.php
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Old 05-07-2006, 06:34 AM   #4 (permalink)
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Way I hear it, he wants to spend more time with his family.
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Old 05-08-2006, 08:41 AM   #5 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CNN.com - CIA director resigns
CIA Director Porter Goss resigned abruptly Friday. When CNN asked him why, Goss said-- "It's just one of those mysteries."
Yeah, that'll quell the rumor mill. Why would he say something like that?
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Old 05-08-2006, 08:51 AM   #6 (permalink)
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It's because he works for the CIA... everything is a mystery.
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Old 05-08-2006, 08:58 AM   #7 (permalink)
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They have been cleaning house for the last couple of weeks ever since the new Chief of staff came aboard. Gross is a victim of that. It's all a way to get Bush's poll numbers back up. I don't it will work, untill we see Dick or Rummy leave, and we all know Dick aint going no where, Rummy on the other hand, maybe.

I dont believe any reason that the talking heads give me. They are all pushing their own agenda and will stretch the truth to favor that. I wonder what bull spin master Dan Barlett is saying. He is pretty good.
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Old 05-08-2006, 10:37 AM   #8 (permalink)
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So here's a synopsis of the following documentation:

The CIA, as FEMA is....has been gutted by poor Bush appointment decisions and by partisan pressure on intelligence "results". Now we have a report that the stench of Wilkes and Wade threaten the potential (as if there is any, anyway) for the Bush appointment of Gen. Michael Hayden to direct the CIA, tobe any improvement over Goss.

1.Repub congressman Randy Cunningham pled guilty last November to accepting bribes from Brent Wilkes and his protege, Mitchell Wade.

2. Wade's MZM defense contracting sham employed former Gen. King, contracted by Gen Hayden to oversee creation of CIFA. King was then used by the white house to influence the Robb-Silberman Commission to recommended expanding CIFA's powers......all the time....Gen. King was on the now convicted Wade's MZM payroll.

3. Wilkes' sham defense contracting firm paid $600 thousand to Tom Delay's former chief of staff (and spiritual advisor....) Ed Buckham's sham lobbying firm, ASG. Buckham paid Delay's wife over $3000 per month to "work" a "no show" job at ASG.

4. Wilkes bribed Cunningham, and Porter Goss appointed a CIA unknown (Kyle Dusty Foggo) to the agency's #3 position, equivalent to the COO job at a corporation. Wilkes and Foggo, were best high school buds, best men in each others' weddings, and named their kids after each other. Wilkes ran a gambling and hooker patronage "Op" that was intended to reward congressmen who sold their offices to Wilkes. Foggo sometimes hosted the gambling part of the "Op" in his own home.
Wilkes used a limo service owned by a man with a 62 incident "rap sheet", to deliver the hookers and ferry around the congressmen and CIA staffers who attended the "events".

The Limo service received $21 million in contracts to transport Homeland Security Dept. Execs.
DHS said that they don't do background checks on their contractors. The <<,<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/05/AR2006050501613.html">Shirlington Limo service was not the low bidder</a>, ....the low bidder protested....but DHS stuck by the bid award.

<b>I am certain that I don't have all of it posted....much more will come out. If you keep voting for one party rule.....and dismiss all of this as "partisan" finger pointing, there will be more of this, "Bush style reform"!</b>

Quote:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1146...rst_element_hs
CIA Director Goss Abruptly Quits
Agency Has Been Rocked
By Leak Controversies;
No Reason Given for Exit
By CHRISTOPHER COOPER, SCOT J. PALTROW and ROBERT BLOCK
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
May 6, 2006; Page A4

.....When Mr. Goss took over the CIA in September 2004, officials said they hoped he would bring rigor to an agency that had suffered tremendous morale problems in the wake of intelligence failures before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the run-up to the Iraq war. But instead, problems at the agency seemed to multiply, as insiders criticized the rigid management style of the former CIA agent and Florida Republican congressman. Mr. Goss was thought to have hastened the brain drain at the agency by reassigning much of its upper echelon when taking over, installing a new crop of managers.......

.....Mr. Goss's resignation also comes amid the controversy regarding the man he appointed to the CIA's third-highest post, Mr. Foggo. Mr. Foggo is under federal criminal investigation relating to the awarding of CIA contracts, people with knowledge of the inquiry said Friday.

When Mr. Goss became CIA head in 2004, Mr. Foggo was his surprise choice for executive director. Although Mr. Foggo had been with the CIA for more than 25 years, he had mainly been assigned to middle-management logistical and administrative jobs, and had never held any senior headquarters position.

Mr. Foggo has been a close friend since junior high school with Poway, Calif., defense contractor Brent R. Wilkes. The criminal investigation centers on whether Mr. Foggo used his postings at the CIA to improperly steer contracts to Mr. Wilkes's companies.

Mr. Wilkes earlier this year was implicated in the charges filed against Mr. Cunningham, as an unindicted co-conspirator who allegedly had paid about $630,000 in bribes to Mr. Cunningham for help in obtaining federal contracts.......
Quote:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000581.php
EXCLUSIVE: CIA Nominee Hayden Linked to MZM
By Justin Rood - May 8, 2006, 11:33 AM

While director of the National Security Agency, Gen. Michael V. Hayden contracted the services of a top executive at the company at the center of the Cunningham bribery scandal, according to two former employees of the company.

Hayden, President Bush's pick to replace Porter Goss as head of the CIA, contracted with MZM Inc. for the services of Lt. Gen. James C. King, then a senior vice president of the company, the sources say. MZM was owned and operated by Mitchell Wade, who has admitted to bribing former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham with $1.4 million in money and gifts. Wade has also reportedly told investigators he helped arrange for prostitutes to entertain the disgraced lawmaker, and he continues to cooperate with a federal inquiry into the matter.

King has not been implicated in the growing scandal around Wade's illegal activities. However, federal records show he contributed to some of Wade's favored lawmakers, including $6000 to Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) and $4000 to Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL).

Before joining MZM in December 2001, King served under Hayden as the NSA's associate deputy director for operations, and as head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency.

King worked at NSA Headquarters in Ft. Meade, Maryland, in 2004 and 2005, both sources told me. "King was out there working on same floor as Hayden," one former employee with firsthand knowledge of the arrangement said. "He was doing special projects for Hayden as an MZM employee." Neither former employee knew details of King's work for Hayden; one said he thought he was doing "special projects" for the director, while the other speculated it was "high-ranking advisory work."

The NSA did not immediately respond to my request for comment. Hayden left the NSA in April 2005 to take the post of Deputy Director of National Intelligence. The DNI office referred my call on the matter to the NSA.

As an MZM employee, King was involved in a number of controversial projects. <b>In 2002, he was a key adviser to the team creating CIFA, the Pentagon's domestic surveillance operation. In 2004, he was one of three MZM staffers who worked on the White House Robb-Silberman Commission, which recommended expanding CIFA's powers.........</b>

Last edited by host; 05-08-2006 at 10:41 AM..
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Old 05-08-2006, 10:48 AM   #9 (permalink)
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More ???? Okay!
Quote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12666396...wsweek/page/2/
Intelligence: Goss Goes Out—But the CIA's Struggles Go On

......An eyewitness (who asked not to be identified commenting on sensitive matters) told NEWSWEEK that in 1999, Foggo, Cunningham and a former Goss aide and ex-CIA official known as Nine Fingers (identified to NEWSWEEK as Brant Bassett) attended an all-male Wilkes poker party at the Westin Grand Hotel in Washington. (Bassett and lawyers for Wilkes and Cunningham declined to comment; CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano told NEWSWEEK: "Mr. Foggo maintains that government contracts for which he was responsible were properly awarded and administered. If he attended occasional card games with friends over the years, Mr. Foggo insists they were that and nothing more.").......
Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/wa...07inquire.html
WASHINGTON, May 6 — A federal investigation into one congressman's bribe-taking last year has produced a second round of inquiries into the actions of officials at the C.I.A. and the Homeland Security Department and of members of the House Intelligence Committee, government officials say.

....On Friday, Republicans and Democrats on the House Committee on Homeland Security announced that they planned to investigate Shirlington Limousine's contract......

......Larry Orluskie, a homeland security spokesman, said background checks were conducted on all Shirlington drivers before they were given access to department cars and officials. He stressed that the department does not use Shirlington's limousines and that it has been "absolutely satisfied" with the company since awarding it a contract in April 2004.

"The drivers are professional," he said. "The buses are always on time. The contract is just perfect."........
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Old 05-08-2006, 03:42 PM   #10 (permalink)
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Quote:
Was Goss always just a "transitional figure" who would shake up the CIA, perhaps on ideological grounds, and then hand over control to someone like Hayden?
I doubt he was intended to be a transitional figure, but he certainly was there to weed out Bush's supposed enemies. The majority of experienced members are now gone, which is a far better reason to can him.

Quote:
Was he just overwhelmed by his job, as he has previously suggested in interviews, leading President Bush to lose confidence in him?
Congressional hours are a cakewalk compared to the CIA, or any head of a major corporation. Gathering his previous aides under him didn't improve the need to delegate. Bush was forced to dump Goss.

Quote:
Was he just unhappy with his reduced role after the creation of the National Director of Intelligence?
He went head to head with Negropointe over moving the CIA analysts out from under him and lost.

Quote:
Was he forced to resign as a result of his possible involvement in the Duke Cunningham scandal, which was reported just days earlier?
It certainly may have contributed, but he was told in April to prepare to leave by May.

I doubt Bush was losing sleep over Goss's incompetence and the loss of key talent within the CIA, because clearly Rumsfeld was building his own intelligence organization with the blessing of Cheney. Any civilian checks to the military are rapidly eroding as can be seen by General Hayden's appointment to the head of the CIA.
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Old 05-10-2006, 09:56 AM   #11 (permalink)
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If Rick Gwin, special agent in charge of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service's western regional office, is to be believed, Randy Cunningham is not cooperating in the investigation of the folks who he admitted had bribed him, Wilkes and Wade.....

Rick Gwin sounds very similar to Scooter Libby prosecutor, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald:
Quote:
.........Gwin said the continuing investigation into three unindicted Cunningham co-conspirators and others who may have assisted them in the awarding of defense contracts is a widespread probe with many different avenues.

"This is much bigger and wider than just Randy 'Duke' Cunningham," he said. "All that has just not come out yet, but it won't be much longer and then you will know just how widespread this is."...........
Randy Cunningham could not have committed too serious crimes, if the following determination of Congressman Jerry Lewis is the correct one:
Quote:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000387.php
April 15, 2006
........As Copley points out, it's nice but it's not enough. Cunningham appears to have done most of his dirty work not from the Armed Services panel but from the House Appropriations Committee. Yet inexplicably, Appropriations chair Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) refuses to open any sort of investigation into the disgraced lawmaker's activities.
<b>Jerry Lewis does not see anything that Cunningham has done that is serious enough to warrant an investigation by his committee. Why then, isn't the Duke-stir in the federal witness protection program, instead of in a federal prison, where he is reluctant to cooperate with investigators and where there is a greater potential for a motivated party to kill him to silence him, since everyone now knows exactly where he is. This is the CIA (or ex-CIA) we're talking about!</b>
Quote:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006...5_485_9_06.prt
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Last modified Tuesday, May 9, 2006 11:17 PM PDT

Cunningham said to be uncooperative

By: MARK WALKER - Staff Writer

Randy Cunningham has not been helping federal authorities as they continue to probe the former North County congressman's web of corruption, a top Pentagon investigator said Tuesday.

Rick Gwin, special agent in charge of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service's western regional office, said he is troubled by the lack of assistance, particularly in light of Cunningham's plea agreement that calls for him to tell all that he knows.

"In my opinion, he has not been cooperative and I have not gotten any information from him to further develop other targets," Gwin said in a telephone interview from his office in Mission Viejo. "I was hoping that from a jail cell, he might become more cooperative, but we just don't have the cooperation that I think we should have."

Cunningham pleaded guilty in November to bribery and tax evasion, admitting he took more than $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors.

K. Lee Blalack, Cunningham's attorney in Washington, declined comment Tuesday when asked about the former Republican's lawmaker's level of cooperation in the weeks since he was sentenced to a little more than eight years in prison.

Immediately after the March 3 sentencing, Blalack said he hoped Cunningham's continuing assistance would ultimately lead to a reduction in his prison time.

Blalack said he talked with Cunningham on the telephone on Tuesday.

"He is doing as well as he can under the circumstances," Blalack said. "He is simply trying to serve his time and take his punishment like a man."

Cunningham remains at a federal correctional center in North Carolina undergoing medical and physical evaluations.

Gwin said the continuing investigation into three unindicted Cunningham co-conspirators and others who may have assisted them in the awarding of defense contracts is a widespread probe with many different avenues.

"This is much bigger and wider than just Randy 'Duke' Cunningham," he said. "All that has just not come out yet, but it won't be much longer and then you will know just how widespread this is."

The fallout from Cunningham's more than five years of taking bribes from defense contractors continues to reverberate from coast to coast.

In Washington on Monday, the No. 3 official at the CIA, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, announced he is retiring in the wake of last week's resignation by Porter Goss as the spy agency's director.

Foggo's resignation may have more to do with his relationship to Cunningham and Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes than with Goss' decision to step down.

Reports in The Washington Post and elsewhere Tuesday from unnamed sources said that the FBI had confirmed it is investigating whether Foggo improperly intervened in the awarding of defense contracts to Wilkes' firm, ADCS.

The CIA issued a statement on Foggo's behalf denying he had done anything improper.

The CIA's inspector general also is investigating Foggo's relationship to Wilkes and how ADCS was able to win CIA contracts to provide the agency with bottled water, first-aid kits and other unspecified services in Iraq.

Wilkes is one of three co-conspirators in the Cunningham case who remains under scrutiny by the U.S attorney's office in San Diego, which refuses to comment on the status of its work.

Last month, The Wall Street Journal, citing an unnamed source, reported that Wilkes also provided prostitutes for Cunningham at poker games he sponsored at Washington's Watergate Hotel, a claim that Wilkes' attorney Nancy Luque vehemently contested Tuesday.

"Not only is it absolutely false that Brent Wilkes provided those kinds of services to anyone at any time, it is irresponsible for any news organization to report that something happened just because the FBI is reportedly investigating something," Luque said.

"There is no evidence of any person having said that it happened."

While ADCS remains in business, the building that Wilkes constructed to house the company is for sale and numerous staffers have been laid off, Luque said.

Luque also said there are no ongoing discussions to resolve the case against her client.

"Mr. Wilkes does not believe he has done anything wrong and therefore there is no reason to discuss any kind of resolution with the government," she said.

The status of the investigation into two other unindicted co-conspirators, New York developer Thomas Kontogiannis and his son-in-law, John T. Michael, is unclear. Like their San Diego counterparts, officials at the New York U.S. attorney's office declined comment Tuesday.

Back in San Diego, the government and Cunningham's estranged wife are said to be nearing a deal on her claim to a portion of the sale proceeds from the couple's former Rancho Santa Fe mansion.

Her San Diego attorney, Douglas C. Brown, said he believes the case that Nancy Cunningham is contesting could be settled within a month.

"It has not reached its conclusion, but we are hoping to have some movement in the next four or five weeks to wrap it up," Brown said.

The gated mansion sold in December for $2.6 million, $500,000 more than the couple paid for it in early 2004.

Randy Cunningham forfeited his interest in the sale proceeds when he pleaded guilty.

But Nancy Cunningham has continued to fight the government's claim that it is entitled to all the sale proceeds because the home was bought with her husband's ill-gotten gains.

She contends she is entitled to a portion of the money because part of the funds used to buy the home came from the sale of the couple's former home in Del Mar Heights.

The assistant U.S. attorney handling the home sale case was out of town Tuesday and could not be reached for comment.

The late 2003 sale was the transaction that tipped federal authorities to Randy Cunningham's bribery. Washington defense contractor Mitchell Wade paid the Cunninghams $700,000 more for the home than he would sell it for less than a year later.

Wade pleaded guilty in February to providing more than $1 million in bribes to Cunningham and faces up to 11 years in prison.

Wade's attorneys say he continues to cooperate with authorities, a factor they will undoubtedly argue when Wade is sentenced. He is scheduled to appear in a Washington courtroom on Aug. 26 for a presentence hearing.
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Old 05-10-2006, 01:16 PM   #12 (permalink)
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Host,

In something somewhat unrelated, I'd just like to say that I WAS working on a power-point presenation project for a final due tommorrow when I drifted over here, and ended up reading your Dec. 16th post on Foggo's appointment...for the subsequent 45 minutes I've been completely engrossed reading through your old article and comment postings.

I'm officially your fanboy =P

I'll be back here to contribute when this project is over...
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Old 05-10-2006, 02:12 PM   #13 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kangaeru
Host,

In something somewhat unrelated, I'd just like to say that I WAS working on a power-point presenation project for a final due tommorrow when I drifted over here, and ended up reading your Dec. 16th post on Foggo's appointment...for the subsequent 45 minutes I've been completely engrossed reading through your old article and comment postings.

I'm officially your fanboy =P

I'll be back here to contribute when this project is over...
I'm his self-appointed fangirl.

(If you really want an eye opener, track down his economic postings on what he believes will become of the US dollar or "scrip.")
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Old 02-01-2007, 07:44 AM   #14 (permalink)
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Okay, I first heard of Mr. Foggo in late 2005. This has been a long time coming, allegedly accelerated now by Atty. Gen. Gonzales's dismissal of US Atty. Carol Lam, who is bringing these indictments on her way out the door.

Will this also bring down Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), or Tom Delay, a recipient of rides on Wilke's executive jet? Will it impact the white house....Goss at CIA was appointed by the president, and the white house dealt directly in a contract for "furniture", with Wilkes's colleague and fellow Duke Cunningham briber, Mitchell Wade, who has accepted a guilty pleas deal and is co-operating with prosecutors. Katherine Harris, the former Florida Sec'ty of state, then congresswoman, and losing senate candidate is also under this investigation.

Eleven months ago, I asked these questions, here:
Quote:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...7&postcount=51
Do the following news reports influence any of the posters here who unquestioningly believe the Bush administration's declaration of a "War on Terror", against "evil doers" who
Quote:
....hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0010920-8.html
.....to consider the following questions:
If we really were in the middle of the fifth year of <b>fighting Mr. Bush's "war on terror", in earnest, against a "real" enemy</b> that actually was a formidable enough threat to justify the expense measured in American blood and treasure and the "bluster" that comes from the mouths of Bush, Cheney, et al, would I be able to ask the following questions and post the following observations.....would I, ....really??

I doubt it...but you don't...what would it take....for you to doubt it...to stop repeating the Foxnews and Bush/Cheney/Rove phrases, as you seem to...in unison.
No more talk of "they're evil".....or the "homicide bomber" "Foxism".

Is it not "odd" the the "number 1" named conspirator, Brent Wilkes, who bribed Randy Cunningham...paid him at least $636,000, is still walking around, unindicted? Odder still that Wilkes is the best friend of....until recently, an undercover CIA agent of 22 years, who is "number 3", at CIA? And even odder that the Union Tribune in San Diego just reported that
Quote:
......After Foggo joined the CIA in 1982, <b>Wilkes often visited him on Foggo's overseas assignments.</b> Even before the CIA removed Foggo's undercover status last year, Wilkes and Foggo boasted to acquaintances about Foggo's secretive work.........
Quote:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...9-1n1duke.html
Cunningham defense assailed in court filing
By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

March 1, 2006

.....“I convinced myself that I wasn't selling my good offices because I have always believed in the value of the programs that I supported.”

Prosecutors Sanjay Bhandari, Jason Forge and Phillip Halpern said the facts contradict Cunningham's position.

They said Cunningham rejected concerns and objections raised by government officials and “bullied and hectored” them over red flags they raised about the legitimacy of the programs.

“At every stage of the funding process Cunningham set aside the judgment of (Department of Defense) officials about what was in the best interests of our country, in favor of what was in the best interests of his co-conspirators,” they said.

“To fund one initiative usually means cutting funding for another. Thus Cunningham lobbied to take funds away from other programs to ensure more money for his co-conspirators.” ......

....Included in the prosecutors' documents are e-mails by members of Cunningham's Washington staff, testimony by Pentagon officials and a letter written on Cunningham's congressional stationery – and under Cunningham's signature – by Wade. <h3>Also included is a script Wilkes gave the legislator on how to talk a skeptical Pentagon official into moving funds into his company's programs</h3>.....

...In 2004, shortly after Cunningham bought his Rancho Santa Fe mansion with proceeds from the sale of the Del Mar-area house, he asked Wilkes for $525,000 to pay off one of the mortgages.

Wilkes agreed, but asked for a $6 million contract, which he got over the objections of a Pentagon contracting officer.

The off-the-shelf computer equipment provided in that contract cost Wilkes $1.5 million to purchase, prosecutors said, netting an exorbitant profit.
Is it "odd" that, if not for a newspaper reporter in San Diego, who "broke" the story that Randy Cunningham was taking massive bribes to sell his influence on Pentagon procurement decisions, to Wilkes and his protege, the now guilty Mitchell Wade, it would still be "business as usual"....Cunningham would still be in congress....pressuring the Pentagon to buy things that it didn't need to defend our country, in exchange for more cash from Wilkes and Wade.

Isn't it odd that the chairman Jerry Lewis of the congressional Defense Appropriations committee, even now avoids launching a formal inquiry into the damage to our defense....in wartime"... that Randy Cunningham actaully cost, or to find if other members of congress were also accepting bribes?

Isn't it odd that the White House <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000058.php">refuses to disclose</a> just what it paid Mitchell Wade's company...with the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/27/AR2005062701856.html">people's money</a>. for? Or....why Tom Delay or his pastor and former chief of staff, Ed Buckham, won't disclose what influence Brent Wilkes bought with the more than $500,000 that Wilkes paid to Buckham's ASG lobbying entity, which employed Delay's wife, Christine, to not perform a "no show" job.

<h3>Did congressman Bob Ney act "oddly", when he entered praise for Brent Wilkes in the congressional record, oddly reminiscent of a similar action that he performed on behalf of convicted lobbyists Abramoff and Michael Scanlon?</h3>

Isn't it odd that two scandals, "Abramoff" and "Cunningham" can involve so many government officials and so much money, with a commonality that much of the money enriched members iof the ruling politcal party and their election campaigns, but almost nobody here talks about them? Is it just easier to chat about a vague "war on terror" that does not change the behavior of those charged by the American people to manage it as quickly, efficiently, and as inexpensively, and...of course,
<b>AS OPENLY</b> as possible, with more serious enforcement of all laws, and with the stiffest possible penalties for those who break the law and weaken our security or are "war profiteers"? Isn't actually undermining the "war effort", a crime that deserves to be examined, discussed, and railed against, more vigoroulsy with the attention and vitriol directed against those who merely ask questions like the ones I am asking, or engage in peaceful protest and dissent as they lawfully conduct themselves as per past constitutionally guaranteed precedent?

Why, then the silence, the acceptance, the lack of curious comment, the lack of outrage, the blind, lockstep, recitation of conservative republican official talking points? Odder still, when we observe that the "support" for failure, duplicity, and by intentional negelect....open, unchallenged and uninvestigated corruption committed by key intelligence, defense, and congressional officials, duing wartime, and at the expense of all of us, even those who once called themselves "small government, "fiscal conservatives"!
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...dpage%E2%80%9C

CIA's Goss Names Undercover Officer To No. 3 Position

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 5, 2004; Page A02

CIA Director Porter J. Goss has selected a 22-year undercover
logistics officer nicknamed "Dusty" as executive director, the
third-ranking position at the agency.

<b>A public announcement of the choice is being delayed until his name
can be "cleared" and made public,</b> a senior administration official
said yesterday. "He is undercover at this time but will become public
fairly soon," the official said. Because Dusty has had five overseas
tours in undercover roles, the agency must "roll back his name" to
ensure that those holding embassy positions he once occupied are no
longer agency personnel, a former CIA official said.

The executive director manages the day-to-day administrative
activities of the $5 billion agency, including personnel and
budgeting matters, while the director and deputy director focus on
intelligence and clandestine operations.

Described as a logistician, Dusty has served at home and abroad,
including work for the counterterrorism center, the directorate of
science and technology, and the administrative directorate, officials
said. Several retired and active agency officials noted that although
he had run offices overseas, Dusty had no experience managing an
operation as big as the CIA.

Three retired officials noted that <b>Dusty had maintained a close
relationship in recent years with several Republican staff members of
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence whom Goss, the
panel's former chairman, has brought to the agency as his top
assistants.</b>

Dusty is also a critic of a controversial new pay-for-performance
compensation reform plan that was put together by A.B. "Buzzy"
Krongard, who served as executive director under former CIA director
George J. Tenet.........
<b>Odd that Foggo's identity was in a classified status as recently as earlier this year, but Wilkes was able to "go visit him" during his overseas assignments? Wouldn't it be more likely that Wilkes would not even know where in the world Foggo was, if his identity and his missions were classified?

Indeed...as recently as three months ago, this news report describes the CIA website's description of Foggo's "status:
</b>
Quote:
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cf...dcn=todaysnews
DAILY BRIEFING
December 4, 2005

.....Contracting probe could extend to CIA

One current and two retired senior CIA officials told Government Executive that (as noted last week by reporter Laura Rozen in The American Prospect's TAPPED blog) the relationship of Wilkes and <b>Foggo--who the CIA's Web site declares is "under cover and cannot be named at this time,"</b> even though he is pictured and identified on a federal charity web page--has been a subject of increasing concern by some at Langley.
Quote:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...-1n4foggo.html
No. 3 CIA official investigated on ties to Wilkes

By Dean Calbreath
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

March 4, 2006

The CIA said yesterday it is investigating the connection between the agency's No. 3 official and a co-conspirator in the bribery case of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham.

The CIA's executive director, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, is a lifelong friend of Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes. Federal prosecutors say Wilkes is the unindicted co-conspirator who, according to court documents, gave Cunningham $630,000 in bribes in exchange for federal contracts.

....Keith Ashdown, who monitors government contracts at the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense, said the investigation is overdue.

“One guy controls acquisition budgets. The other guy abuses acquisition budgets,” Ashdown said. “It's as close to a perfect storm as you can get.”

Because the CIA is funded through the so-called “black budget” – which is shielded from public scrutiny – it is hard to know how much business Wilkes is doing with the agency.

But CIA employees, business associates of Wilkes and former employees of his flagship company, ADCS Inc., have told The San Diego Union-Tribune that Wilkes has several CIA contracts, ranging from providing CIA agents with bottled water and first-aid kits to performing unspecified work in Iraq.

Most of the work, the sources say, was handled by Archer Logistics, a Wilkes company that shares office space in Chantilly, Va., with Wilkes' two-person lobbying firm, Group W Advisors. .....

<b>.....After Foggo joined the CIA in 1982, Wilkes often visited him on Foggo's overseas assignments. Even before the CIA removed Foggo's undercover status last year, Wilkes and Foggo boasted to acquaintances about Foggo's secretive work.</b>

At ADCS corporate headquarters, Wilkes set aside an office next to his executive suite where Foggo could work when he leaves the CIA, according to several former ADCS employees and business associates.
Quote:
http://www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=3834
BRINGING DOWN DUKE
Meet the man who ended Cunningham’s career

by Daniel Strumpf

Shivering on a dark street in Islamabad, Pakistan, Marcus Stern tells
his story via a satellite phone with a patchy connection. The
52-year-old journalist is the man of the moment here in San Diego,
despite being half a world away.

In truth, Stern’s moment came seven months ago, when his article
published in the Union-Tribune revealed that Mitchell Wade, a defense
contractor, had paid an inflated price for a Del Mar home belonging
to Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham. The story noted a
corresponding surge in multimillion-dollar government contracts won
by Wade’s company, MZM Inc., thanks in part to the House Defense
Appropriations subcommittee of which Cunningham was a member.

A bombshell from the outset, Stern’s story cast an unflattering
spotlight on Cunningham, a heretofore outspoken conservative
Republican politician with a chest full of war medals and eight terms
under his belt as the representative for California’s 50th
Congressional district.

But details of the crooked real-estate deal quickly emerged, as did
stories of proffered boats and shady campaign contributions that in
turn spawned a federal investigation, a flurry of subpoenas and raids
at the homes and offices of Cunningham and Wade........
Quote:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...n29events.html
Timeline of events
Cunningham: 'I broke the law'
UNION-TRIBUNE

November 29, 2005

....June 12, 2005
Copley News Service and The San Diego Union-Tribune reveal that Mitchell Wade, a defense contractor with ties to Cunningham, took a $700,000 loss on the purchase of the congressman's Del Mar-area house while Cunningham, a member of the influential defense appropriations subcommittee, was supporting Wade's efforts to get tens of millions of dollars in contracts from the Pentagon.....

.......July 21, 2005
The U.S. Attorney's office sends notice to the San Diego County Recorder's office that it has filed a lawsuit stating it has an interest in Cunningham's Rancho Santa Fe property. The lawsuit, which was initially secret but later made public, contends Cunningham should forfeit his home to the government because it was purchased with illegally obtained money.

Aug. 5, 2005
CNS and the Union-Tribune report that Cunningham – along with other high-profile passengers, including then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay – has taken jet flights provided by Group W Transportation, owned by Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes.

Aug. 16, 2005
Agents from the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and Department of Defense seize documents from the Poway headquarters of ADCS Inc. and the home of Wilkes, the company's president..........
Quote:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...n30bribes.html
Randy 'Duke' Cunningham
Timeline of bribes

UNION-TRIBUNE

November 30, 2005
Quote:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...-1n29duke.html

Randy 'Duke' Cunningham
Rep. Cunningham resigns; took $2.4 million in bribes

By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

November 29, 2005

....Cunningham admitted in a plea agreement that he "made recommendations and took other official action" to benefit two government contractors because of the payments and not because it was "in the best interest of the country."

Contractor Wade's company, MZM Inc., received $163 million in federal work, primarily for Pentagon programs, from 2002 to 2005. It had not done government business before.

Wade has since sold the company.

Authorities investigated Cunningham's relationship with Wade and two other businessmen, <b>Brent Wilkes</b>, founder of Poway-based ADCS Inc., and Thomas Kontogiannis, a Long Island developer.

The investigation has included testimony from numerous witnesses before a San Diego federal grand jury, subpoenaed documents, and raids on the congressman's home and offices and the offices and homes of the businessmen.

The government contractors – who have not been charged – are identified in the court documents filed yesterday as "Co-conspirator No. 1 and Co-conspirator No. 2."

Justice Department officials confirmed yesterday that <b>Wilkes is Co-conspirator No. 1</b> and Wade is Co-conspirator No. 2.

The officials also confirmed that Kontogiannis and John T. Michael are the other two uncharged co-conspirators identified in the documents.

Kontogiannis controlled a financial company in Long Island, N.Y., and his wife's nephew, Michael, is president of a mortgage company there.

Wade paid more than $1.1 million in bribes, Wilkes $636,000 and Kontogiannis $328,000, according to the plea agreement and Justice Department officials.

In May 2004, several months after Cunningham bought the Rancho Santa Fe home for $2.5 million, Wilkes paid Kontogiannis $525,000 to be used to pay off the second mortgage on the home, according to the documents.

Kontogiannis said in an interview in July that he paid off the mortgage primarily as payment for his purchase of the Kelly C, a 65-foot yacht he said he bought from Cunningham for $627,000.

Prosecutors say Cunningham never sold the boat, but Kontogiannis made $58,674 in mortgage payments on it over 2½ years.

The Coast Guard has no record of a sale.

In August 2004, according to the documents, Wade paid $500,000 to Kontogiannis to pay off the Rancho Santa Fe home's first mortgage. Kontogiannis made $28,237 in mortgage payments to Washington Mutual until this June, when news of the questionable Del Mar Heights house deal broke.

This summer, Cunningham's wife filed a court declaration saying the couple were paying a $3,250 monthly mortgage on the home.

<b>Wilkes paid $11,116</b> over five months, ending in April 2001, in mortgage payments for the Kelly C, according to the documents. Cunningham bought the boat in 1997 and lived aboard it, docked in a Washington, D.C, marina a few blocks from the Capitol.

In August 2002, after buying an Arlington condominium with Kontogiannis paying the $200,000 down payment, Cunningham moved the Kelly C out of Washington, according to the plea agreement.

The agreement doesn't say what Kontogiannis received in return for his financial dealings with Cunningham.

However, in 2002, Kontogiannis pleaded guilty to being part of a $6.3 million bid-rigging scheme in New York schools and asked Cunningham for advice in how to get a presidential pardon. Kontogiannis never followed through on trying to get the pardon.

Before Kontogiannis pleaded guilty, Cunningham wrote a letter to a New York prosecutor saying the prosecution was politically motivated, according to The Washington Post and The Associated Press.

In 2002, Wade bought a 45-foot boat for $140,000, renamed it the Duke-Stir, and docked it in the same slip once occupied by the Kelly C for Cunningham to live in.

Cunningham claimed he paid docking fees and maintenance in lieu of rent for his use of the Duke-Stir, but those benefits were included in the bribery charges he admitted to yesterday.

When announcing in July that he wouldn't run for re-election, Cunningham publicly declared his innocence.

Yesterday, he said, "I was not strong enough to face the truth" about his earlier denials. "So, I misled my family, staff, friends, colleagues, the public – even myself. For all of this, I am deeply sorry."

Copley News Service writers Joe Cantlupe and Dana Wilkie contributed to this report.
Quote:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...-1n29duke.html

March 3, 2006 — A stunning investigation of bribery and corruption in Congress has spread to the CIA, ABC News has learned.

The CIA inspector general has opened an investigation into the spy agency's executive director, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, and his connections to two defense contractors accused of bribing a member of Congress and Pentagon officials.

The CIA released an official statement on the matter to ABC News, saying: "It is standard practice for CIA's Office of Inspector General — an aggressive, independent watchdog — to look into assertions that mention agency officers. That should in no way be seen as lending credibility to any allegation.

"Mr. Foggo has overseen many contracts in his decades of public service. He reaffirms that they were properly awarded and administered."

The CIA said Foggo, the No. 3 official at the CIA, would have no further comment. He will remain in his post at the CIA during the investigation, according to officials.

Two former CIA officials told ABC News that Foggo oversaw contracts involving at least one of the companies accused of paying bribes to Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham. The story was first reported by Newsweek magazine.....
Quote:
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?...rticleId=10816
“Duke” of Deception
From our February issue: The overlooked security implications of the Cunningham scandal.

By Laura Rozen
Web Exclusive: 01.13.06

Prosecutors have further targets in their crosshairs beyond Cunningham.........

....What the Time report suggests was that Cunningham might not be the biggest fish in this case after all.

The Cunningham case has revealed several lawmakers worthy of investigative scrutiny. Two men described but not named as co-conspirators in the original indictment -- <b>Brent Wilkes</b>, 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,”.............

.........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 <b>Wilkes’</b> corporate umbrella, the <b>Wilkes</b> Corporation. Through another <b>Wilkes’</b> 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........

....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, <b>Ney inexplicably entered praise of a San Diego-based charity headed by Wilkes,</b> 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.....
Quote:
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?...rticleId=10816

......There’s little doubt that Cunningham, who sat on the defense appropriations subcommittee, possessed sufficient influence to steer defense contracts to those from whom he has admitted taking bribes. In repeated interviews with The American Prospect, however, the press spokesman for the Appropriations Committee has indicated that Lewis has decided to only “informally” investigate those “programmatic recommendations” made by Cunningham in the past -- although Cunningham himself has admitted corrupting the program process. “There is an informal review going on,” committee Spokesman John Scofield explained in December. “It’s not something we had made a big announcement on.”.....
<b>Damn "that host"...he doesn't believe our prezinent !!
What's wrong with that boy? Dosen't he know that we're a "nation at war"?</b>
Nope....I look at congressman Jerry Lewis's reaction to Cunningham's unlawful armtwisting of Pentagon procurers, and I have to conclude...no official probe by Jerry, no real committment to a "war". Foggo's still at CIA, Wilkes is walking the streets, unindicted. Must be a phoney war, or...... many officials are traitors....one or the other.....
We are "at war", and it's ironic that the folks who support the bogus BS that this "war" gives the POTUS constitution usurping power, are not interested or indignant about the traitorous criminality extant in these revelations and guilty pleas....let alone in the sudden dismissal of close to a dozen US attorneys, the stealth circumvention, by Arlen Specter, of constitutional "advice and consent" in the replacement of these US Attorneys, and the insertion of "political hacks" to front as replacements for the dismissed US Attorneys... (watch CNN's Jack Cafferty in a blunt commentary on this matter, linked over on the "Help Me Out" thread....)
Quote:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...s/16594232.htm
Posted on Thu, Feb. 01, 2007
Charges near in Calif. bribery case
ALLISON HOFFMAN
Associated Press

SAN DIEGO - Federal prosecutors are preparing to seek indictments against a former top CIA official and a San Diego defense contractor linked to the bribery scandal that sent former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham to prison, two government officials familiar with the investigation said Wednesday.

The officials, who spoke to The Associated Press only on condition of anonymity because grand jury proceedings are secret and the charges have not been finalized, said prosecutors plan to ask a San Diego grand jury to return charges of honest services fraud and conspiracy against Kyle "Dusty" Foggo and Brent Wilkes.

Wilkes' lawyers have said he is one of four unidentified co-conspirators described in the 2005 plea agreement for Cunningham, a San Diego Republican.

Honest services fraud is a combination of mail and wire fraud often used in public corruption cases involving officials who have engaged in a pattern of improper activities, such as accepting gifts, trips or promises of future employment from private individuals.

The officials said a second indictment is being prepared that would charge Wilkes and two other alleged Cunningham co-conspirators - New York businessman Thomas Kontogiannis and his nephew, John T. Michael - with bribery and several conspiracy counts.

The indictments are likely to be returned within the next few weeks, the officials said.

The fourth alleged co-conspirator, Mitchell Wade, is cooperating with prosecutors after pleading guilty in February 2006 to bribing Cunningham in exchange for more than $150 million in government contracts since 2002.

Foggo's attorney, Mark MacDougall, said he had not been contacted by the U.S. attorney's office regarding possible indictments and could not comment.

Mark Geragos, an attorney for Wilkes, said he had not been apprised of any imminent criminal charges. "I've reviewed this case and I don't see anything that merits an indictment," he said.

Messages left for Kontogiannis and Michaels were not returned.

Prosecutors in San Diego would not comment about an ongoing investigation.

The grand jury began hearing evidence in 2005 against Cunningham, at the time an eight-term congressman who served on the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee and the Intelligence Committee. Cunningham's subcommittee assignment made him a key figure in the awarding of defense contracts.

Cunningham plead guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors - including payments for a mansion, a used Rolls-Royce and a yacht - in return for funneling contracts to certain companies. He was sentenced to more than eight years in prison in March 2006.

Prosecutors allege one of the beneficiaries was Wilkes, whose companies won nearly $100 million in federal contracts over the past decade. According to Cunningham's plea agreement, Wilkes paid Cunningham more than $626,000 in bribes between 2000 and 2004.

Wilkes, who heads Poway-based Wilkes Corp., grew up with Foggo in the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista. They remained very close into adulthood, naming their sons after each other.

Foggo was the No. 3 official at the CIA, responsible for the agency's day-to-day operations, until resigning in May after his home and office were raided by FBI agents in connection with the Cunningham probe headed by the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego.

Federal law enforcement agencies and intelligence officials have been investigating whether Foggo improperly awarded contracts to Wilkes' companies, including a multimillion-dollar contract to supply bottled water for CIA operations in Iraq.

A House Intelligence Committee report on Cunningham's activities released last November said Foggo steered $70 million in contracts to Wade and Wilkes.

The House Intelligence, Appropriations and Armed Services committees were subpoenaed in December by prosecutors for documents relating to the Cunningham investigation. A House aide said Wednesday that House lawyers have asked for more time and are working to negotiate a response that satisfies prosecutors so they can withdraw the subpoenas.
<h3>The administration with the "war time powers for the president", justification for nearly everything that it does, has stonewalled defense procurement corruption and intelligence gathering and analysis failures investigations for years, even as Cunningham, Wade, Bob Ney, and Abramoff have taken plea deals, Tom Delay has been arrested, and Jerry Lewis, Dusty Foggo, Porter Goss, and Brett Wilkes have resigned, are being investigated, or both.....and, as ongoing investigations turn from lasting months, into years, the "answer" is to fire the lead prosecutor, US Atty Carol Lam, and probably replace her with a political hack. The response here, by the remaining, self described, patriotic Bush sycophants is.....silence.....cuz....we are at war against islamic facism...YEAH....RIGHT!!!</h3>

Last edited by host; 02-01-2007 at 08:37 AM..
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Old 02-15-2007, 10:04 AM   #15 (permalink)
Banned
 
Does anyone else agree with me that the executive branch is less than enthusiastic about uncovering all the details of the web of corruption/illegality surrounding Duke Cunningham's "war time" treason?

Quote:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002582.php
The Honorable Alberto Gonzales
U.S. Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001

Dear Attorney General Gonzales:

Last week, Congressman Emanuel <a href="http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/020807/emanuel.html">sent you a letter</a> requesting that former U.S. Attorney in San Diego Carol Lam be appointed as outside counsel to finish her work on the Duke Cunningham Case. Unfortunately, your office has not yet responded to that letter.

Two days ago, Lam's investigation continued to bear fruit as a federal grand jury charged Kyle "Dusty" Foggo and Brent Wilkes with at least 11 felony counts related to their involvement with Cunningham. As Elana Schor's <a href="http://www.thehill.com/thehill/TheHill/News/Frontpage/021407/wilkes.html">article in The Hill</a> yesterday points out, "Justice Department officials have praised the Cunningham probe as the linchpin of their growing pursuit of public corruption cases, yet prosecutor Lam is nonetheless slated to step down[Thursday] after the Bush administration cited unspecified 'performance' issues in requesting her resignation late last year. Six other U.S. attorneys, several involved in ongoing corruption investigations, were dismissed at about the same time."

As you know, of those seven fired U.S. Attorneys, Lam was not the only one investigating sitting public officials before being dismissed. For example, Daniel Bogden of Nevada and Paul Charlton of Arizona were dismissed while their offices were conducting probes concerning elected officials.

Schor's article also notes that Deputy U.S. Attorney General Paul McNulty was scheduled to brief members of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday with information on the decisions to dismiss the U.S. Attorneys. During last week's public Senate hearing, Deputy U.S. Attorney General McNulty confirmed that Bud Cummins III, the former U.S. attorney for Eastern Arkansas, was dismissed without cause to install Timothy Griffin, a former aide to White House adviser Karl Rove.

Carol Lam's indictments of Foggo and Wilkes underscore the importance of last week's request and the need for an explanation of why these diligent public servants were dismissed. It is vital that U.S. Attorneys be able to prosecute wrongdoing free from political pressure. We are pleased that the Department of Justice has also agreed to brief members of the House Judiciary Committee on the dismissals of Carol Lam and other U.S. Attorneys. We look forward to further details regarding the date for that briefing and your response regarding the request to appoint Carol Lam as an outside counsel to finish the Cunningham and related investigations.

Thank you for your prompt attention to these matters. We look forward to hearing from your office.

Sincerely,

Rahm Emanuel
Member of Congress

Howard Berman
Member of Congress

John Conyers
Chairman, Judiciary Committee

Linda Sánchez
Chairman, Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law
....and from accused briber and traitor, Wilkes himself:
Quote:
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/artic...wilkesstmt.txt
Now, after 18 months, Wilkes said he is "battered but not broken." And he turns to point an accusatory finger at outgoing U.S. Attorney Carol Lam and her prosecutors:

<i>Because I refused to plead guilty 18 months ago, and to say I did something I did not do, they amped up the pressure on my employees, my family members and me. They intimidated and coerced people to say things that were not true and hid the truth from the grand jury. ...

There's no need to remind the San Diego community that these are the same prosecutors routinely accused of prosecutorial misconduct. The office has been led by a dismissed U.S. Attorney who has shown bad judgment, has previously pursued vendettas, and has set the tone at the top of an organization accused of witness tampering and manufacturing evidence. It is no accident, nor is it a surprise, that the indictments were rushed to the press 48 hours before her forced departure.</i>
Why am I left with the impression that former republican congressional leaders, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and especially, Atty General Gonzales....have more of a common interest with Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Wilkes, Mr. Mitchell Wade, and Mr. Foggo, than they do with Carol Lam and "our troops" in "harm's way"?

Last edited by host; 02-15-2007 at 10:16 AM..
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Old 02-25-2007, 01:20 PM   #16 (permalink)
Banned
 
Contradicting earlier Bush admin. claims that US attorneys were recently dismissed because of deficient job performance, the NY Times published this information:
Quote:
http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t...cid=1113934225

February 25, 2007
Dismissed U.S. Attorneys Praised in Evaluations
By DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 — Internal Justice Department performance reports for six of the eight United States attorneys who have been dismissed in recent months rated them “well regarded,” “capable” or “very competent,” a review of the evaluations shows.

The performance reviews, known as Evaluations and Review Staff Reports, show that the ousted prosecutors were routinely praised for playing a leadership role with other law enforcement agencies in their jurisdictions.

The reviews, each of them 6 to 12 pages long, were carried out by Justice Department officials from 2003 to 2006. Each report was based on extensive interviews, conducted over several days with judges, other federal law enforcement agencies and staff members in each office.

It had been known that the reports were mostly favorable, but the reports themselves had not been made public.

Over all, the evaluations, which were obtained from officials authorized to have them, appear to raise new questions about the rationale for the dismissals provided by senior Justice Department officials. The officials have repeatedly cited poor job performance to explain their decisions to oust the eight prosecutors, all of them Republicans appointed by President Bush in his first term.

On Saturday, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who has led a Congressional investigation into the dismissals and has been briefed on the evaluations, said the reports showed that new legislation was needed to keep the Justice Department from politically motivated firings.

“As we feared, the comprehensive evaluations show these U.S. attorneys did not deserve to be fired,” Mr. Schumer said. “To the contrary, they reveal they were effective, respected and set appropriate priorities.”

In response, a senior Justice Department official said the reviews, which focused on management practices within each United States attorney’s office, did not provide a broad or complete picture of the prosecutors’ performance.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature of personnel information, said, “The reviews don’t take into account whether the U.S. attorneys carried out departmental priorities.”
for the rest of the article   click to show 


Another report, dated Feb. 7-11, 2005 evaluating the performance of Carol C. Lam, who was dismissed as the United States attorney in San Diego, <b>concluded that she was “an effective manager and respected leader in the district.”</b>+
IMO, this DOJ "action" smells. Why would the POTUS and Atty. Gen. Gonzales fire the prosecutor who forced a guilty plea from sitting congressman, Duke Cunningham, from his briber, Mitchell Wade, and who now has indicted his other briber, Brett Wilkes, and Wilkes' best friend and the former #3 at CIA, Kyle Foggo, before she can even prosecute Wilkes and Foggo?

Last edited by host; 02-25-2007 at 01:25 PM..
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Old 03-30-2007, 10:56 PM   #17 (permalink)
Banned
 
I began post #15 on this thread, with this question:
Quote:
Originally Posted by host

......Does anyone else agree with me that the executive branch is less than enthusiastic about uncovering all the details of the web of corruption/illegality surrounding Duke Cunningham's "war time" treason?.......
Surprise! What are the odds that Mr. Cheney, already embroiled in the cover up, the interference and obstruction of....."in wartime..." of the investigation of the treasonous political revenge "outing" of the identity of a CIA "operative", via the conviction of his COS and National Secuirty advisor, "Scooter" Libby, on 4 felony counts.......
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...101033_pf.html
The Cloud Over Cheney

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, February 21, 2007; 2:12 PM

......."There is a cloud over the vice president . . . And that cloud remains because this defendant obstructed justice," Fitzgerald said.

"There is a cloud over the White House. Don't you think the FBI and the grand jury and the American people are entitled to straight answers?" Fitzgerald asked the jury.

Libby, Fitzgerald continued, "stole the truth from the justice system.".........
.........would find himself involved with Mitchell Wade, one of two principle bribers....(now an admitted and convicted criminal), of the traitor, former Rep. Duke Cunningham?

Quote:
http://www.prospect.org/web/printfri...ew.ww?id=12612
New questions arise concerning Mitchell Wade's first White House contract -- and his connections to the vice president.
<p>
By

<a href="



/web/page.ww?name=View+Author&section=root&id=826">Laura Rozen</a><br>
Web Exclusive: 03.30.07
<p>

From 1991 to 1993, a young lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserve was working as a program manager in a Pentagon intelligence office. His name was Mitchell John Wade. His boss, the assistant secretary of defense for command, control, communications and intelligence, was Duane P. Andrews. Andrews's job at the Pentagon was essentially to serve as intelligence advisor to the secretary of defense. The secretary of defense at the time was someone that Andrews knew well and respected immensely: Dick Cheney.

<p>Back during the Reagan administration, Andrews had served as a professional staff member to the House Intelligence Committee, of which Cheney, then a Wyoming Republican congressman, was a prominent member. In a recent interview with a federal technology magazine, Andrews lists Cheney as his personal, lifelong hero.

<p>In 1993, at the end of George H.W. Bush's presidency, Cheney went on to become CEO of the oil services giant Halliburton; Andrews joined the massive government contractor SAIC, where he would rise to become CIO; and Wade, then 40 years old, moved to form his own defense contracting firm, MZM, Inc. But it wasn't until 2002 that MZM would get its first federal government contract: a peculiar one-month, $140,000 contract from the White House, later revealed to be for providing computers, office furniture, and specialized computer programming services to the Office of the Vice President.

<p>Wade's company would later get three more contracts from the White House and tens of millions of dollars in contracts from the Defense Department and other federal agencies, many of them for classified intelligence work. In the summer of 2005, of course, it all began to unravel for MZM, after journalist Marcus Stern of the <em>San Diego Union Tribune</em>/Copley News service noticed that San Diego congressman Duke Cunningham had sold his house to a company that listed as its name a Washington, D.C. street address, 1523 New Hampshire Ave. This was the address of MZM. After an extensive investigation that led to a sprawling federal probe run out of the San Diego U.S. attorney's office (the now-fired Carol Lam), Wade pled guilty last year and is awaiting sentencing on charges related to bribing Cunningham, who himself pled guilty on bribery-related charges and is serving out an eight year prison sentence. In February, three more indictments were issued in the case, this time against a San Diego-based defense contractor and Bush/Cheney Pioneer with whom Wade had closely worked, Brent Wilkes; Wilkes's longtime friend-turned-CIA executive director Kyle Dustin Foggo, who is accused of steering Wilkes CIA contracts and has since resigned; and the nephew of a Greek American businessman who is accused of laundering some of Wilkes's and Wade's bribes to Cunningham
through his mortgage company.   click to show 
Wade was fond of telling people that he worked for Cheney at the Pentagon. (This source also revealed something interesting for Cunningham case aficionados -- how Wilkes and Wade first started working together. According to this source, in 1992, at the time Wade worked for the Office of Command, Control Communications and Intelligence in Cheney's Pentagon], he controlled a small pot of money,around $11 million, connected to the military's role in the Panama Canal. Wilkes was seeking Pentagon contracts at the time, and was looking for a Pentagon benefactor. Ultimately, according to this source, Wade helped facilitate Wilkes getting his first Pentagon contract to convert U.S. military-held documents from the Panama Vanal into digital form -- a service Wilkes would later earn tens of millions of dollars providing to the Pentagon, along with other services. Upon leaving the Pentagon in 1993, Wade would work closely as a consultant to Wilkes for several years, before Wade's MZM became a competitor to Wilkes's ADCS in its own right, using similar methods of buttering up congressmen to win federal earmarks.)

<p>Meanwhile, the <a href="http://www.nctimes.com/pdf/cunningham/wadestatement.pdf">statement of offenses</a> to which Wade pled last February 2006 noted another interesting detail. On or about August 30, 2002, just a month after receiving the $140,000 contract from the White House/OVP, "Wade paid $140,000 … to a third party" for a yacht he gave Duke Cunningham. Among the lingering mysteries of the wider Cunningham probe is the identity of the third party. It would appear to be someone not identified in the statement of offenses as a co-conspirator in the wider Cunningham corruption probe.

<p>It is of course absurd to believe that Cheney or his staff would have had any interest in Wade having the funds, provided through a White House contract, to buy Duke Cunningham antiques and a yacht. It's not so hard to believe, however, that Wade's connection to Cheney, going back to their days in the Cheney Pentagon, may be a useful place to start looking for why Wade's MZM beat out more than fifty more established firms to get its first federal contract from one of the most secretive and powerful offices in town. Among the many lingering unanswered questions on this aspect of the case is who, in May 2002 -- just two months in advance of Wade getting the White House contract -- facilitated MZM getting authorized to be a federal supplier in the first place. This was <a href="http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032807F.shtml">done</a> through a small branch of the Department of the Interior called the Minerals Management Service. That service and the Department itself have <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/29/business/oil.php">reportedly</a> become the subject of their own sprawling corruption probe.
.....and now, it's time to ask you to post your reactions? Do you think that Rep. Henry Waxman is justified in making these demands on the executive branch, as the article stated,
Quote:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007..._123_28_07.txt
Last modified Wednesday, March 28, 2007 10:02 PM PDT

......Waxman released a letter he wrote to White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolton, wherein Waxman asserted that in July 2002, MZM received a White House contract. The $140,000 contract called for providing computers and furniture for Vice President Dick Cheney's office.

"To date ... there has been no examination of the circumstances surrounding MZM's initial federal contract and the role that White House officials played in the award and execution of the contract," Waxman's letter stated.

In the letter, Waxman asked the White House to provide the documents to the committee by April 6, including:

- all contracts, subcontracts and task orders between MZM and any associated firms,

- all invoices and payments made,

- all reviews of MZM's performance and contacts with its employees and

- communications between MZM, the White House, the General Services Administration and the Departments of Defense and Interior and members of Congress or their staff.

White House officials did not return phone calls seeking comment.....
It seems that Cheney is identified as a high official with an association to a convicted criminal, in a treason related matter, twice now, in just a month. Since we are "at war", is your tolerance of a refusal by the executive branch to provide answers to Waxman's congressional committee, when that refusal comes, in a few days, any less than it would be in peace time?

Last edited by host; 03-30-2007 at 11:11 PM..
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Old 01-22-2008, 12:10 PM   #18 (permalink)
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Whoops....sounds like an "excessive" sentence might be coming down the pike.
Mr. Bush likes to commute prison sentences he thinks are "excessive"....

Quote:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/p...m22wilkes.html
Hearing put off for defense contractor
By Greg Moran
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

January 22, 2008

Federal probation officials are recommending that Brent Wilkes, the Poway defense contractor who was convicted of bribing former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, <h3>should be sentenced to 60 years in prison, according to court records.</h3>


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Wilkes was scheduled to be sentenced on Monday, but that has been put off until Feb. 19 at the request of his lawyer, Mark Geragos.....
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