The Cunningham Connection

Josh Marshall reports a big story uncovered by Marcus Stern and colleagues at Copley News Service.
Mitchell Wade paid the bribes to former Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA) that eventually led to both men pleading guilty to multiple felonies. Almost two years ago we noted the odd news that the first federal contract Wade ever received was with none other than the White House, the White House itself, which is officially called the Executive Office of the President in federal contracting-speak.

The contract was signed on July 15th, 2002 and it was supposedly for "office furniture."

On December 5th, 2005, the LA Times reported that the contract was "to provide office furniture and computers for Vice President Cheney."

Now, a lot of people have wondered for a long time just what that contract was really for. Remember, this was the maiden contract for a company specializing in defense and intelligence services. (The company was approved for federal contracting two months earlier.) And they bag a contract to deliver a bunch of desks and chairs to Vice President Cheney's office? Add to the mix that, as we and others have long reported, Wade has long bragged that he had pull with the Vice President and those in his office and the whole thing starts to sound a bit fishy.

See Josh's story for the rest of what's known so far. This is beginning to smell like a motive for the firing of Carol Lam (the prosecutor who jailed Cunningham).

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