Such a small world, such a small world.
You remember defense contractor Brent Wilkes. He was the ur-briber at the heart of the soon-to-expand Duke Cunningham scandal. Mitchell Wade got a lot more attention. But a closer look at the backstory of the scandal shows that Mitch came up through the Wilkes operation.
Anyway, one of the choice nuggets from the Wilkes-Duke saga was the fact that Wilkes set up an actual airline that at one point owned no more than a mere 1/16th of a plane (Don’t worry. It was a share. So it flew okay.). He called it Group W Transportation. And it existed for pretty much the exclusive purpose of ferrying members of Congress around the country on a Lear Jet.
Needless to say, Duke himself logged the most hours of any congressman on Group W. But the article in the San Diego Union-Tribune that broke the story notes that Tom DeLay repeatedly flew the friendly skies of Air Wilkes.
And one other member of Congress flew Air Wilkes too.
Who would that be? None other than Rep. Roy Blunt.
Just the man to clean up the House.
Fly the friendly skies.
