Wilkes to Target Five Pols for TestimonyThere’s good news and there’s bad news for lawmakers.
First the good news: Brent Wilkes’ lawyer Mark Geragos withdrew the twelve subpoenas for House lawmakers after the judge signaled that he’d only approve them if they specifically related to Wilkes’ defense — i.e. the alleged bribes he gave Duke Cunningham.
Even though Geragos dropped the initial subpoenas, he told reporters later that he planned to file new ones against former House Speaker U.S. Rep. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and California Republican Reps. John Doolittle, Duncan Hunter, Darrell Issa and Jerry Lewis.
The basis for all this, Geragos says, is that “we’ve got members who were on these plane flights with Mr. Cunningham [on Wilkes’ plane], who were going to these dinners hosted by Mr. Wilkes.” Presumably this would be part of Wilkes’ defense that his gifts to Cunningham were just part of a system of which he was the victim.
So the lawmakers still on Geragos’ list are there because they had a relationship with Wilkes. And perhaps not coincidentally, two of those five are already under federal investigation — Lewis for his ties to Wilkes and other lobbyists and Doolittle for his ties to Jack Abramoff.
