“At War” with DHS, GOP Homeland Security Chair Implies Dirty Dealings In Shirlington DealThat Shirlington Limousine story isn’t over.
On Thursday, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee went on Hardball and gave it to the Homeland Security Department with both barrels — first for cutting preparedness funding to New York, and then for making what he thinks may be a corrupt deal with the Shirlington Limo company.
“[T]hereâs issues weâre looking into as to whether or not other companies were asked not to bid” on the $21 million contract, said Rep. Peter King (R-NY). The contract ultimately went to Shirlington, the troubled transportation company with strange ties to powerful Republicans.
I didn’t catch the show, but in the transcript King — declaring “I am at war with the Department of Homeland Security” — sounds nearly apoplectic:
You had the orgies going on at the Watergate Hotel, with prostitutes, pimps, booze, card games, Duke Cunningham, lobbyists, CIA. The people were driven and the prostitutes were driven to the Watergate Hotel in limousines owned by a company which was run by a crook, which lost two of its previous contracts but was given a $21 million contract by the Department of Homeland Security to drive the top executives of the department around Washington. . . .
And thereâs a lobbyist who was involved with the company who is also involved with Duke Cunningham and somehow mysteriously this company gets a $21 million contract to escort or to drive around the Department of Homeland Securityâs top officials.
I’ll grant DHS this much: It takes guts to cut funding to a Congressman’s state when he’s sitting on a pile of corruption allegations about you, and holds the power to subpoena your documents and testimony. (Thanks to CQ‘s Patrick Yoest for pointing this transcript out to me.)
