If you’ve been following the brouhaha over Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s amazingly fortunate recent experiences in the residential real estate market you’ll know that a real estate broker named Elizabeth Todd was the one who arranged the transaction between Cunningham and defense contractor Mitchell Wade. And, most importantly, she’s the one who chose the highly-questionable price for the sale.
In his statement to the press yesterday, in referring to Todd’s role in the matter, Cunningham claimed that Wade had “received comparables from an independent source establishing the value of the home.”
But how ‘independent’ was Todd?
As we told you this morning, Roll Call reported that Todd had contributed $3000 to Cunningham’s campaign (“Friends of Duke Cunningham”) in the 2001-2 cycle.
But after our own review of the records that seems to seriously understate the level of the Todd family’s giving.
From July 1997 to May of 2004, the Todd family gave $11,500 in campaign contributions to the Duke’s campaigns.
When I say ‘family’, I’m referring to Elizabeth, her husband Whitney Todd and someone named “Richard B. Todd” who we’ll go out on a limb and say is related to them since he lists the same PO Box and is a ‘consultant’ for the Todds’ company.
More to follow.
