Monday, June 13, 2005

The fruit of absolute power...

This is about as black and white a case of corruption as you can get:

A defense contractor with ties to Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham took a $700,000 loss on the purchase of the congressman's Del Mar house while the congressman, a member of the influential defense appropriations subcommittee, was supporting the contractor's efforts to get tens of millions of dollars in contracts from the Pentagon.

Mitchell Wade bought the house for $1,675,000 in November 2003 and put it back on the market almost immediately for roughly the same price. But the Del Mar house languished unsold and vacant for 261 days before selling for $975,000.

Meanwhile, Cunningham used the proceeds of the $1,675,000 sale to buy a $2.55 million house in Rancho Santa Fe. And Wade, who had been suffering through a flat period in winning Pentagon contracts, was on a tear -- reeling in tens of millions of dollars in defense and intelligence-related contracts.

Do you even need to ask what party this guy belongs to.

Josh Marshall has the details.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My favorite thing about this is the little aside about the marijuana cigarette. The guy looks like he good use a good doob.

Notice, also, that the CEO of that company was a Pentagon program manager before. The door keeps revolving.