For the past week, we at TPM and TPMmuckraker have been digging out details about Shirlington Limousine, the car service at the center of the scandal. So has the FBI. Tomorrow’s Times reports that “F.B.I. agents have talked to Shirlington employees about driving Mr. Cunningham and prostitutes to hotel poker parties, and have interviewed women who work for escort services.”
And it looks like we’ll soon have help from Congress in getting more details about those very fishy Department of Homeland Security contracts that Shirlington was able to land:
On Friday, Republicans and Democrats on the House Committee on Homeland Security announced that they planned to investigate Shirlington Limousine’s contract.
“The information we’ve obtained raises a number of serious questions, from the contracting process to possible security concerns,” said Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama, the Republican chairman of the House subcommittee in charge of management and oversight at the Department of Homeland Security. “The appearance of a lack of background checks on contractors is another troubling personnel issue at D.H.S. that we are examining.”
In a draft letter to the inspector general of homeland security, to be sent Monday, Representative Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, asks why the department hired the limousine company and whether Shirlington’s bid received preferential treatment. It seeks a list of official passengers.
Democrats on the committee said Friday that they plan to ask homeland security officials about the Shirlington contract in a May 18 hearing.
