Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

March 3, 2006 — A stunning investigation of bribery and corruption in Congress has spread to the CIA, ABC News has learned.

The CIA Inspector General has opened an investigation into the spy agency's executive director, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, and his connections to two defense contractors accused of bribing a member of Congress and Pentagon officials. ...

... Two former CIA officials tell ABC News that Foggo oversaw contracts involving at least one of the companies accused of paying bribes to Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham. The story was first reported by Newsweek magazine.

The California Republican has pleaded guilty after admitting to accepting $2.4 million in bribes in exchange for arranging defense contracts. He was sentenced today to eight years and four months in prison for corruption. Federal law enforcement officials said Cunningham is cooperating and the investigation is continuing.

As executive director of the CIA, Foggo oversees the administration of the giant spy agency. He was appointed to the post by CIA director Porter Goss after working as a mid-level procurement supervisor, according to former CIA officials.

While based in Frankfurt, Germany, he oversaw and approved contracts for CIA operations in Iraq.

Foggo is a longtime friend of Brent Wilkes, listed as unindicted co-conspirator No. 1 in government documents filed in the Cunningham investigation. The two played high school football and were in each other's weddings.

According to government documents, Wilkes gave Cunningham $630,000 in cash and gifts in exchange for help in getting government contracts.

Wilkes was the founder of ADSC, Inc, in 1995. Under Wilkes, the company obtained more than $95 million in government contracts.

Officials say they could not describe the CIA contracts in question because some of them were classified secret. ...

Last Friday, Mitchell Wade, the former president of the defense contractor MZM and one of the two who so impressively and repeatedly bribed Duke Cunningham, pled guilty. He admitted, among other things, that he illegally contributed to two Congressional campaigns. They've since been identified as Harris' and Rep. Virgil Goode's (R-VA).

Now, Wade told the government that neither Harris nor Goode knew that the contributions were illegal, i.e. that Wade reimbursed his employees and their spouses for the $2K they laid out to the campaigns.

But in both cases, Wade approached the Member of Congress after having delivered the contributions and asked if they wouldn't be so kind as to throw an appropriation his way. In Goode's case, that resulted in a $9M MZM facility in Goode's district.

Now it's coming out that Harris followed through too. And she's been lying, breaking promises, and doing her best to cover up her involvement with Wade....

What the heck had Wade, MZM's CEO, wanted from Harris in return for that money?

Harris has claimed, to me and other journalists, that she didn't have any idea. She insisted that she had assumed all those MZM-connected people -- who didn't live in Florida and whose $2,000 checks arrived in bundles -- just liked her stands on the issues and wanted to see her re-elected.

She did say Wade had been considering opening a plant of some sort in the Sarasota area. But she said she knew no details and didn't know exactly how that might inspire MZM to break the law to give her so much money, or why it would inspire MZM employees and spouses to send her as much as $4,000 each from their own wallets.

Even after learning Wade had bribed another congressman and had used illegal means to make far bigger donations to Harris than the law allows, she said she still had no idea what the heck MZM's motive was for giving her all that money. (Herald Tribune)