According to a Congressional investigation that has been made public today “Randy Cunningham pressured and intimidated staff members of the House Intelligence Committee to help steer more than $70 million in classified federal business to favored military contractors.”
The inquiry also found that despite numerous “red flags� about the propriety of a particular contract for work on a controversial Pentagon counterintelligence program, committee staff members for three years “continued to accept and support Mr. Cunningham’s growing requests for this project.�
Now this is information that is actually relevant in politics. Despite what Mr. Hoekstra thinks of it:
The report is another embarrassment for Congressional Republicans, who, three weeks before Election Day, are trying to contain the damage from accusations that former Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida, made sexually explicit remarks in e-mail messages to Congressional pages. The report on Mr. Cunningham was made public by Representative Jane Harman of California, the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.
Ms. Harman’s action drew a rebuke from Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the committee, who called the release “disturbing and beyond the pale.�
That is of course nonsense. When something is not in the interest of the Republican party, Mr. Hoekstra, it is not automatically “disturbing and beyond the pale”.
More:
The inquiry found no evidence that staff members of the Intelligence Committee had profited or expected to profit from Mr. Cunningham’s dealings. It also concluded that committee staff members had been suspicious of Mr. Wade and “disinclined to provide him any favorable treatment.�
At the same time, committee staff members repeatedly acceded to Mr. Cunningham’s demands to steer money to Mr. Wade’s company, MZM Inc. The report describes how Mr. Cunningham worked to gain support within the Intelligence Committee for a program run by MZM at the Counterintelligence Field Activity agency of the Pentagon.
So, let me summarize: they thought that there was something fishy going on, yet they did what he wanted them to do.
Does this remind anyone else of something we heard about a little while ago?
