PLENTY OF CRIME, NOT SO MUCH PUNISHMENT-- ONE BUSH REGIME OPERATIVE WALKS FROM PRISON AND ANOTHER "RESIGNS"

Sen. Grassley greets Frank Calzone, head of GOP front group, Center For A Free Cuba

Few Republicans complicit in the most massive theft of public resources in the history of the world have even been indicted, let alone punished. And when one gets sentenced they know Bush is going to pardon them on his way out anyway. Apparently Brent Wilkes isn't even waiting that long. A pair of federal judges ordered him released from prison yesterday. He's out on bail pending his appeal. He had been sentenced to 12 years and has already served almost 5 whole weeks. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune prosecutors have been discussing appealing the case because they "were seeking a longer term of between 16 and 25 years."

He was convicted of bribing former San Diego Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham with gifts, trips, meals and cash in exchange for lucrative defense contracts. He also was found guilty of conspiracy, fraud and money laundering.

Even closer to the black heart of the White House a special assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs, Felipe Sixto was forced to resign because of he was "misusing" grant money (taxpayer grant money) from the U.S. Agency for International Development when he worked for a shady right-wing Cuban-American destabilization outfit, Center for a Free Cuba. There's far more to this case than meets the eye, though. It's well known in Cuban-American circles that USAID's Cuba money was being funneled back into right wing politics in Miami, then into PACs and organizations that supported Republicans across the country.

I found out about this case from Joe Garcia's campaign. Joe, I hope you'll remember, is running against Debbie Wasserman Schultz's favorite fascist member of Congress, Mario Diaz-Balart in south Florida. To Joe, formerly Executive Director of the Cuban American National Foundation and Chairman of the Democratic Party of Miami-Dade County, this is just a symptom of what is so wrong with a Bush Regime policy specifically designed to win votes in Miami and patronize partisan supporters rather than to work seriously on helping achieve  social justice and freedom in Cuba.

As I have consistently stated in the past, millions of dollars intended to fuel a democratic change in Cuba are ending up in the hands of Bush/Diaz-Balart cronies and never makes it to the island. While some of the funds are being properly used, and the program should continue, it is shameful that Bush/Diaz-Balart sidekicks have used it to take advantage of the generosity of the American taxpayer in order to enrich their friends and political allies.

In 2006, the Bush administration was warned by the Government Accountability Office that federal funds to Cuba were being grossly mismanaged and they did nothing. The GAO uncovered that "USAID's internal controls over the awarding of Cuba program grants and the oversight of grantees do not provide adequate assurance that the grant funds are being used properly or that grantees are in compliance with applicable laws and regulations." The report further detailed instances where the review process for granting awards was never completed. The USAID also failed to follow-up with several award recipients to ensure proper use of the funds.

Presented with this compelling evidence, the Bush administration sat on their hands and allowed taxpayer dollars to be wasted. Accordingly, American policy should require that at least 80% of these funds make it to dissident groups on the island.  It's time to move beyond the Bush/Diaz-Balart do-nothing politics of cronyism and corruption."

In 2006 the Washington Post looked into the GAO report Joe refers to above. The report caused a small scandal for a few days and even a Republican hack like Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake was so astounded at the level of abuse that he denounced the Bush Regime:
"I think that this administration and to some extent the last wanted simply to curry favor with the Cuban American exile community."

Nearly all of the $74 million a federal agency has spent on contracts to promote democracy in Cuba over the past decade has been distributed without competitive bidding or oversight in a program that opened the door to waste and fraud, according to a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office.

In one of the more extreme cases of apparent abuse, the GAO said a Miami-based group used government money to purchase "a gas chainsaw, computer gaming equipment and software (including Nintendo Game Boys and Sony PlayStations), a mountain bike, leather coats, cashmere sweaters, crab meat, and Godiva chocolates."

Last year Sixto's boss before Bush, Frank Calzon, was in a TV debate with Joe about Cuba policy. When Joe mentioned all this stuff, Calzone went beserk and stormed off the show. (It's in Spanish but you'll get the picture even if you don't habla any espanol.) I wonder why Bush just asked this guy to resign instead of firing him? Don't they believe in accountability and responsibility over there? Or does he know too much to get him too pissed off?

According to this morning's Washington Post, which made no connection to its own reporting from 2006, "The matter has been referred to the Justice Department, and the inspector general at the U.S. Agency for International Development, the source of the grant funds, was investigating as well... Neither the White House nor the nonprofit would discuss specific allegations, how much was allegedly misused or how it was used."

MORE BAD NEWS FOR THE GOP: RANDY DUKE CUNNINGHAM SPILLING HIS GUTS OUT TO THE FEDS

This comes from an FBI report based on an extensive interview with Republican ex-Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham in his prison home near Tucson:

“Cunningham stated that, by 2000, he had already been receiving numerous benefits from Wilkes that included such things as vacation trips, liquor, cash/maintenance money . According to Cunningham, in return for these benefits, he had been helping Wilkes/ADCS in their efforts to secure government contracts.”

Aside from GOP lobbyist/contractor-turned wheeler-dealer Brent Wilkes, Cunningham has also implicated Mitchell Wade (who could easily bring down Republican Congressman Virgil Goode, Jr of Virginia) and Thomas Kontogiannis, the Republican rainmaker who paid off Cunningham to the tune of $400,000 to help him get a presidential pardon. (Note: Thomas Kontogiannis may be a crook but he isn't a complete moron and he was aware that Cunningham was not the president and that $400,000 in cash is a lot of money.)

According to the FBI summary, Cunningham admits to being provided with prostitutes, misleading congressional ethics officials, making others buy gifts for his daughters, personally devising the schemes to launder his bribes, lying to his staff, and putting unrelenting pressure on government officials who thought the defense contracts he pushed with congressional earmarks were wasteful.

About those prostitutes, since there is so much in the news lately about Republican members of Congress and prostitutes, Cunningham said "Wilkes hired prostitutes for him during a Hawaii vacation. Cunningham was miffed that Wilkes got the 'younger and cuter' prostitute and said he was 'somewhat embarrassed on this occasion because he had some difficulty in completing intercourse.'" Perhaps Cunningham should have consulted Robert Dole, an expert in erectile dysfunction in old Republicans. But he didn't and "on the next night, Cunningham again had a prostitute but said he 'did not have sex' with her 'because he felt guilty about his behavior.'" Looks like not all Republicans are the same; David Vitter didn't feel guilty until he was caught. Although Vitter's and Lieberman's diaper fetish might not be the same as actual "sex" that normal people perform.

Cunningham was well placed to steer military intelligence contracts to Wilkes and Wade because he was on the House defense appropriations subcommittee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

He also told investigators he demanded regular cash payments-- he called them “maintenance money”-- once even summoning one of his bribers to his office at the U.S. Capitol to give him $3,000 in cash.

This morning's San Diego Union-Tribune has a long list of FBI findings that shines a bright and unwelcome light on the Republican Culture of Corruption that utterly dominated Washington during the entire Bush reign. It has long been the contention of DWT that Bush agreed that the federal government would look the other way-- ergo, the firings of many U.S. Attorneys who dared to investigate crooks Republican congressmen like Cunningham and Jerry Lewis-- so long as Congress would leave the governing to his regime and not bother with things like oversight. The days of wine and roses were also the days of blatant rubber stampism, practices that are still far from over. Some of the FBI's more colorful findings:

*More than $1 million in bribes were laundered by being sent to Kontogiannis instead of going directly to Cunningham. Investigators identified at least 70 separate bank accounts maintained by Kontogiannis at only one bank.

*Despite all his many businesses, Kontogiannis has not filed a tax return since 2001.

*For the first time, investigators shed light on what Kontogiannis expected to get from Cunningham-– help on a potential sale of fighter jets to his native Greece. [Note: Is the FBI cooperating in a cover-up that would implicate Bush in the pardon scheme?]

*The Rolls Royce that drew so much attention early in the investigation was not the only car that Cunningham made the contractors buy for him. In only two days in early 2002, the congressman bought a $43,000 Thunderbird and a $41,000 BMW from Bob Baker Ford in San Diego with $63,000 of his payment coming from bribes. That was three months before Wade gave him $10,000 toward the used Rolls Royce.

*In mid-2004 when Cunningham needed to make repairs to his boat, he called Wade and demanded $6,500 cash. Wade took the money out of his petty cash, stuffed the cash into a bulging envelope and rushed it over to a Cunningham fundraiser at a Washington restaurant, giving it to a Cunningham staffer.

*Openly “recalled exerting pressure on government officials” to reward his bribers.

*Said Wilkes told him he was “hiding money in a bank account in Panama” to pay him bribes.

*Made either Wilkes or Wade pay his way to the 2003 Super Bowl, Jimmy Buffet concerts in Chula Vista, and several Washington Wizards and Redskins games.

The last 11 pages (a summary) of the 125 page FBI documents are available online and they implicate Katherine Harris (R-FL), Jerry Lewis (R-CA), and Tom DeLay (R-TX) in Wilkes' schemes. The FBI doesn't seem to have pressed Cunningham on his knowledge of criminal activities of other members of Congress, nor did they follow up on his mention of the bribe for the presidential pardon.

WHICH GOP CONGRESSMEN WILL GO TO PRISON WITH DUSTY FOGGO AND BRENT WILKES? JOHN DOOLITTLE? JERRY LEWIS? DUNCAN HUNTER?

GOP ex-congressmen Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Bob Ney are rotting in prison. They're barely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the all-pervasive Republican Culture of Corruption that dominated Washington since the advent of criminal operators like Tom DeLay, Rick Santorum, John Boehner, Roy Blunt, Jerry Lewis, Dollar Bill Frist, Duncan Hunter inside the power structures of both the House and Senate. Some, like Dirty Dick Pombo, Katherine Harris and Conrad Burns, have been expunged. Many, from low-information and backward districts, are laying low and hoping to escape without indictments and criminal charges. At one time they hoped the politicization of the Justice Department by Regime stooges Albert Gonzales and Karl Rove would protect them.

Dual trials for criminal best buds, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo and Brent Wilkes will jeopardize at least a dozen congressional Republicans who were in "business" with these two shysters. Most likely to wind up behind bars in the wake of Wilkes and Foggo are Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Virgil Goode (R-VA), and John Doolittle (R-CA) but there are a dozen more Republican congressmembers and former congressmembers nearly as besotted as those four.

Friday, A.P.'s Charles Babington was wringing his hands in despair today because lobbying reform is losing steam in Congress. "House Democrats are suddenly balking at the tough lobbying reforms they touted to voters last fall as a reason for putting them in charge of Congress. Now that they are running things, many Democrats want to keep the big campaign donations and lavish parties that lobbyists put together for them. They're also having second thoughts about having to wait an extra year before they can become high-paid lobbyists themselves should they retire or be defeated at the polls."

Oh, I'm shocked! When the congressional Democrats chose hack K Street pol Steny Hoyer as their leader and elevated their own version of Tom DeLay to the ostensibly #4 spot (although he-- the Chicago Daley Machine's Rahm Emanuel-- certainly has far more control than #3 and probably as much as #2), meaningful reform-- if it ever had any real chance-- was D.O.A. While I have no doubt that Speaker Pelosi and a handful of veteran progressives and populists would love to see the overwhelming power and inevitable corrupting influence of cold hard cash removed from the political equation, I see no proof that there is any real will among many congressional Democrats to be significantly less sleazy than the Republicans.

"The longer we wait, the weaker the bill seems to get" said Craig Holman of Public Citizen, which has pushed for the changes. "The sense of urgency is fading," he said, in part because scandals such as those involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former Rep. Duke Cunningham, R-Calif., have given way to other news." Well, that could work in favor of the bill too. If the Wilkes and Foggo prosecutions lead to indictments for a significant number of high profile congressmen-- and there is no reason to imagine that, at the very minimum, Doolittle, Lewis, Goode, Hunter, aren't going down-- that could provide the public rage and pressure to force even the most hard core corrupt Democrats, the Emanuels and Hoyers, to embrace real campaign finance reform if, for no other reason, self-preservation. It really has to come from the public. Congress is not likely to reform laws they have carefully crafted to benefit themselves-- unless the outpouring of public rage overwhelms them.

And Matt Stoller is over at Firedoglake today at 2pm PT (5 back East) leading the Book Salon and discussing the most corrupt of all Democrats, Rahm Emanuel, in terms of The Thumpin', the pathetic ass-kissing book he had one of his cronies write about him.


UPDATE: CHRIS VAN HOLLEN IS NO RAHM EMANUEL... THANK GOD!

We all knew a new day was dawning when Emanuel ceded his DCCC chair to progressive good-government colleague Chris Van Hollen. But nowhere is the contrast sharper than when it comes to corruption. CVH is against it. Emanuel is it. Reports today have Emanuel imitating Dick Cheney-- perfect role model-- telling a reporter asking about his stand on lobbying reform to "go fuck yourself." Meanwhile Van Hollen has been bucking Emanuel who, on this issue resembles Jerry Lewis (R-CA) more than anything anyone would recognize as a Democrat. The Hill: "Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has taken the lead trying to craft a workable solution to the bundling issue in the House. Earlier this year, he and Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.) introduced the disclosure language from the Senate reform package as a stand-alone measure."

Good to know the good guys are in charge of something somewhere.