Michell Wade Thinks He's Ratted Out Enough Republicrooks So As Not To Serve A Day In Jail

Goode lost his House seat. Is prison next?

It's kind of an unwritten law etched into stone that members of Congress don't get indicted within x number of days before an election. They make themselves some pretty helpful rules for themselves, don't they? Anyway, the election is over and "x number of days" is less than 2 years so... suddenly crooked Republican contractor/lobbyist, Mitchell Wade has something of great value: information on a number of congressmen who he bribed during the Tom Delay go-go Culture of Corruption years. Today's Washington Post says he's given the goods to the Feds of five congressmen other than the already convicted and imprisoned Duke Cunningham, currently awaiting a pardon from George Bush.

Wade, who is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 15, faces a minimum of nine years in prison. Instead, based primarily on his cooperation with government investigators, he is seeking to have that sentence reduced to "a year of home detention, a fine of $250,000, five years probation and substantial community service," according to the sentencing memorandum filed on his behalf by his attorney, Howard M. Shapiro.

So everyone is running around asking who are the other 3 (besides Virgil Goode and Katherine Harris). Presumably another one is John Doolittle. That leaves two. Prime suspects are Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Tom Delay (R-TX), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Elizabeth Dole (R-NC). Seth Hettena, one of the first journalists to get his teeth into the Cunningham case and Wade's role in it, thinks Wade may have spilled the beans on bigger fish than a mere member of Congress... like the Director of National Intelligence, John McConnell.