November 28, 2005

Another Republican brings "honor and dignity" to office

Randy "Duke" Cunningham is/was the chairman of the House Intelligence subsommittee on terrorism and human intelligence. (feel safer?) Cunningham was a typical Republican macho guy, always blustering for a beligerant foreign policy and never meeting a multi-billion dollar defense contract he didn't love.
Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy and tax charges, admitting taking $2.4 million in bribes in a case that grew from an investigation into the sale of his home to a wide-ranging conspiracy involving payments in cash, vacations and antiques.

Cunningham, 63, entered pleas in U.S. District Court to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud and wire fraud, and tax evasion for underreporting his income in 2004.

In a statement, prosecutors said Cunningham admitted to receiving at least $2.4 million in bribes paid to him by several conspirators through a variety of methods, including checks totaling over $1 million, cash, rugs, antiques, furniture, yacht club fees and vacations.

The case began when authorities started investigating whether Cunningham and his wife, Nancy, used the proceeds from the $1,675,000 sale to defense contractor Mitchell Wade to buy a $2.55 million mansion in ritzy Rancho Santa Fe. Wade put the Del Mar house back on the market and sold it after nearly a year for $975,000 -- a loss of $700,000.

He drew little notice outside his San Diego-area district before the San Diego Union-Tribune reported last June that he'd sold the home to Wade.

Cunningham's pleas came amid a series of GOP scandals. Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas had to step down as majority leader after he was indicted in a campaign finance case; a stock sale by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is being looked at by regulators; and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was indicted in the CIA leak case.

4 Comments:

At 11/29/2005 8:29 PM, Blogger QuadCityImages said...

Ivins has been writing about it for a while also.

 
At 11/29/2005 8:39 PM, Blogger The Inside Dope said...

Thanks for the observation QCI.

 
At 11/29/2005 9:26 PM, Blogger QuadCityImages said...

Hey, there's worse people to be compared with.

 
At 11/30/2005 12:29 AM, Blogger The Inside Dope said...

Well absolutely. I'd be flattered to be compared to Molly anytime, though I could ever be in her league.

 

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