Former CIA third in command and indicted Cunningham bribery scandal co-conspirator Kyle "Dusty" Foggo is threatening to out agents, secret programs and Bush administration skeletons in an attempt to ward of a possible jail sentence on 30 counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.

Prosecutors say Foggo has threatened "to expose the cover of virtually every CIA employee with whom he interacted and to divulge to the world some of our country's most sensitive programs - even though this information has absolutely nothing to do with the charges he faces."

Prosecutors also allege his lawyers are seeking to introduce classified evidence to "portray Foggo as a hero engaged in actions necessary to protect the public from terrorist acts" to gain sympathy from jurors.

Foggo's efforts to disclose classified information are "a thinly disguised attempt to twist this straightforward case into a referendum on the global war on terror," wrote prosecutors Valerie Chu, Jason Forge and Phillip L.B. Halpern in a court motion filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.

The government wants U.S. District Judge James Cacheris to hold a closed hearing on whether the information is admissible at trial and if it is relevant to Foggo's case.

Desperate much? It's amusing to see the Bush administration panic on this one - especially after all their own thinly disguised attempts to make every issue they could think of a "a referendum on the global war on terror". "Dusty" knows where the bodies are buried on everything from Negroponte's South American death squads to Iraq procurement corruption and if he starts singing who knows where it could end.

But what's truly revealing is the way Foggo only believes in national security up until the point where its his own neck on the line. How Republican of him.

Longtime readers will remember the first hookergate scandal (before the DC madam and Sen. David Vitter and later, Elliott Spitzer, etc) revolving around Rep. Randy 'Duke' Cunningham, his briber/co-conspirator, Brent Wilkes and his long-time buddy at the CIA, Kyle 'Dusty' Foggo.

Now the AP is reporting:

A new indictment of a former top CIA official alleges that he received bribes in the form of "sexual companionship" from a friend seeking an edge in landing multimillion-dollar contracts from the agency. Federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday obtained a superseding indictment against Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who as executive director held the CIA's No. 3 rank before leaving in 2006.

The indictment accuses Foggo of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in meals, vacations and other perks in exchange for helping friend Brent Wilkes obtain various contracts with the CIA. ...(more)

The Wshington Post makes it seem slightly less salacious, like it involves an ex-mistress he tried to get a job at the CIA and not a prostitute. Not quite sure if they are talking about different parts of the same indictment or not, but I'd say it appears that way at this point. Wilkes had plied Cunningham with prostitutes, among other things, so it's not surprising at all he would have used the same tactic with Dusty. Wilkes and Foggo had been roommates in college, best men at each others' weddings, and even named their sons after each other.

In related recent news:

• Convicted 'Duke' Cunningham briber/co-conspirator Brent Wilkes just received a 12 year sentence and sits in jail while pending an appeal because he can't afford the bail thanks in part to the housing crisis. Despite his financial woes, he was denied a court appointed attorney last month.

• Another convicted 'Duke' Cunningham briber/co-conspirator and super-duper-secret-mystery man, Thomas Kontogiannis, was sentenced to 8 years and fined $1 million last week following a super-secret plea deal, so I'm looking for him to turn up at another 5-star hotel in Greece any day now.

• Yet another 'Duke' Cunningham briber/co-conspirator (and Cheney buddy), Mitchell Wade, has plead guilty, was fined $1 million by the FEC, and is due to be sentenced in Dec.

The Bush administration has repeatedly invoked the state secrets privilege, a doctrine that was adopted in the McCarthy era, that was originally meant to be used only in exceptional circumstances. Since 2001, however, the Bush Administration has repeatedly abused the privilege in attempts to cover up potentially embarrassing or illegal activities in cases involving warrantless wiretapping and other aspects of the NSA's domestic spy program, kidnapping, aka 'extraordinary rendition', and torture, just to name a few. They have relied on it not only to silence critics and whistleblowers, but also to use it as a shield to go after them like they have to James Risen, Sibel Edmonds and many others. Just this week it's come out that they once again have invoked it in an attempt to keep the details hidden in the case against Thomas Kontogiannis, one of the convicted bribers of Republican congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, where the executive branch has asserted that once they deem something classified, the "courts are virtually powerless to review or disagree."

It's way past time Congress steps in to put a stop to it.

Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Now, Congress may finally be ready to act to rein in these abuses. On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider S.2533, the State Secrets Protection Act, which would bring much needed judicial supervision that could help eliminate bogus state secrets claims, while carefully protecting legitimate interests in national security.

If one of your Senators is on the Judiciary Committee (see below), then you're uniquely positioned to encourage the Committee to approve this legislation and make a real difference in fighting government secrecy! Contact them now and tell them to support the State Secrets Protection Act.

Continue reading »

It makes it way too easy for someone to document their crimes.

An internet agitprop artist publishing the website "Republican Offenders dot com" has produced a list of 272 Republicans charged with criminal activity, 60 of which are pedophiles. Each name is linked to a group heading of the type of crime alleged or convicted. (Among the categories are rape, bribery and "assorted felonies".)

The list really has to be seen to be appreciated.

Howard Dean his own self could not have thought the culture of corruption ran this wide and deep. h/t Contextual Criticism.

As another year comes to a close we're met with the familiar barrage of typically lame 'look back at the year' specials and 'Year's Best' and 'Worst' lists, most if not all of which are hardly ever worth mentioning except for when they wind up naming the absurd. That said, and Putin as Time's Person of the Year or the McLaughlin Group's Winners and Losers notwithstanding, this year just might be the exception. Perhaps the first clue something might be different was when O'Reilly's own Best of Worst of 2007 segment seemed like someone from our crew or perhaps Media Matters might have helped to put it together. In any case, there's at least two year end lists/awards this year that are definitely worth checking out.

The first of which comes to us via Josh Marshall (who incidentally was one of GQ's "Men of the Year" honorees for 2007) who has named the official nominees for this year's first annual "Golden Duke Awards," the winners of which will soon be featured on Bill Moyers Journal. And not surprisingly, several of the Golden Duke finalists also made the cut for Bill Maher's 'D*¢%heads of the Year' in this month's Rolling Stone (which is a much more appropriately titled line-up in this not-so-humble writer's opinion, but I am glad he didn't have award statues made to go with them).

So, what do you think? Were there any other crooks and liars that Josh Marshall or Bill Maher left out?

Air America Radio talk show host Rachel Maddow's newest Campaign Asylum video covers the numerous Republican hooker scandals that have plagued the party over the past couple of years. After the massive Republican defeat in the 2006 elections, Karl Rove claimed that it wasn't Iraq, Katrina or any of the other failures of the Bush administration that brought down the Republicans, it was Mark Foley and other sex scandals that were to blame. As Dr. Maddow points out, if that truly was the reason for the Democratic sweep last year, the post-'06 Republican sex scandals, which are connected to a few GOP presidential campaigns, might pose a big problem for the Republican party in the 2008 elections. Another fine video from Rachel...

Via LATimes:

An internal investigation that the House Intelligence Committee has refused to make public portrays the panel as embarrassingly entangled in the Randy "Duke" Cunningham bribery scandal.

The report, a declassified version of which was obtained by the Los Angeles Times, describes the committee as a dysfunctional entity that served as a crossroads for almost every major figure in the ongoing criminal probe by the Justice Department.

The document describes breakdowns in leadership and controls that it says allowed Cunningham — the former congressman (R-Rancho Santa Fe) who began an eight-year prison term last year for taking bribes and evading taxes — to use his House position to steer millions of dollars to corrupt contractors.

When the committee's investigation was completed last year, the Republican-controlled panel would not release the results; now that the committee is controlled by Democrats, it still will not release the findings. Read more...

  On Face the Nation yesterday, Senator Feinstein told Bob Scheiffer she has evidence that U.S. attorney Carol Lam was pinpointed for firing after she notified the Justice Department she was issuing search warrants for a Republican corruption case. According to Feinstein, an email was sent from the DoJ to the White House shortly after this notification saying that there was a "real problem we have right now with Carol Lam."

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This is why the White House and Alberto Gonzales are in hot water. The evidence is becoming clearer by the day that these attorneys were cherry-picked for replacement because they wouldn't politicize their positions and sacrifice their independence; not because of the supposed "performance-related" issues.

It's important to connect the dots here and say that Lam (who prosecuted Duke Cunningham) was issuing these search warrants for Brent Wilkes and "Dusty" Foggo -- the two men who were implicated in the all but forgotten Hookergate scandal that emerged from the Cunningham probe. Lam was also investigating Rep. Jerry Lewis -- then the chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Did the White House try to eliminate her so that these potentially embarrassing revelations never saw the light of day? And will Lam's replacement still pursue these cases?

The LATimes digs deeper. It's amazing to discover how intertwined all these scandals are. Larisa has some thoughts...

  With the indictment of Duke Cunningham's buddies today and the news that Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan of West Point reached out to '24' producers, telling them to tone down the torture, you knew Keith would have al ot to work with.

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I have to agree with General Finnegan on this. You'd think most people could separate fact from fiction, but the bottom line is '24' legitimizes torture and given its huge popularity, undeniably helps shape public opinion.

 Given the sensationalistic nature of our national media, this is one story I'm shocked never got off the ground. To refresh your memory, back in May of last year, CIA #3 man, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, was implicated in a scandal involving disgraced former Congressman Duke Cunningham, prostitutes and, of all places, the Watergate Hotel. For a comprehensive breakdown, I'll turn you over to Jane whose great post really got into the nitty gritty.

From TPM:

The CIA is refusing to cooperate with federal prosecutors investigating the Duke Cunningham scandal, the Wall Street Journal's Scott Paltrow reports today.

Before getting caught in 2005, Cunningham was involved in a sprawling corruption ring between Congress and the national security community. The scandal allegedly enjoyed the participation of current and former CIA officials, including Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, the executive director of the agency. Foggo would be the highest-ranking CIA official to be prosecuted in the agency's history, according to Paltrow.. Read more...

Brent Wilkes, accused of bribing former Rep. Duke Cunningham, has been pretty quiet lately, but he opened up to the New York Times. It's a must-read story.

Mr. Wilkes had set up separate meetings with the lawmakers hoping to win a government contract, and he planned to punctuate each pitch with a campaign donation. But his hometown congressman, Representative Bill Lowery of San Diego, a Republican, told him that presenting the checks during the sessions was not how things were done, Mr. Wilkes recalled.

Instead, Mr. Wilkes said, Mr. Lowery taught him the right way to do it: hand over the envelope in the hallway outside the suite, at least a few feet away.

That was the beginning of a career built on what Mr. Wilkes calls "transactional lobbying," which made him a rich man but also landed him in the middle of a criminal investigation.

Right, "transactional lobbying." Silly me, I thought it was called "bribery."

Wilkes described a twisted system in which the appropriations process has become little more than a shakedown: "Lowery would always say, 'It is a two-part deal,' " he recalled. " 'Jerry will make the request. Jerry will carry the vote. Jerry will have plenty of time for this. If you don't want to make the contributions, chair the fund-raising event, you will get left behind.' "

As Digby put it, "And yet the country has yet to be convinced that the Republicans are far more likely to steal their tax money and use it to enrich themselves than Democrats. The facts are the facts, but years of 'tax and spend liberal' cant has been so internalized that even when the graft and corruption is right in plain sight, people won't believe it."

--Guest Post by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report

Dukester not cooperating

NC Times:

"In my opinion, he has not been cooperative and I have not gotten any information from him to further develop other targets," Gwin said in a telephone interview from his office in Mission Viejo. "I was hoping that from a jail cell, he might become more cooperative, but we just don't have the cooperation that I think we should have." "This is much bigger and wider than just Randy 'Duke' Cunningham," he said. "All that has just not come out yet, but it won't be much longer and then you will know just how widespread this is....read on"

(h/t Bob)

Update: Josh Marshall says: Do you know what the threshold is for a government criminal investigator, the regional head of DOD's in-house investigative service, to go public and say on the record that someone isn't cooperating and that the scandal is much bigger than anyone thinks?

Norah O'Donnell discusses Hookergate's possible connection to Goss

Norah brought up the possible connection between Porter's resignation and some level of involvement on the Hookergate story that Josh Marshall has been covering.

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Norah: ...we have learned and the CIA has confirmed-that its # 3 official, a guy named Dusty Foggo, was attending poker games at The Watergate with a defense contractor who is now alleged to have provided prostitutes to Congressman Duke Cunningham...

Update:

FDL has a great, quick overview of the situation...