Up to 135 months incarceration for Mitchell Wade. And he’s admitting to more than just bribing Duke Cunningham in his guilty plea. From the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s press release today:
Wade was able to exploit the [defense] procurement system in three distinct ways: by bribing a sitting United States Congressman; by conspiring to give favors to Department of Defense officials responsible for procuring services from Wade’s company; and by funneling illegal campaign contributions to two Members of Congress.
Read all about it here.
More details on Mitchell Wade’s guilty plea.
First off, we can identify the two members of Congress: Reps. Virgil Goode (R-VA) and Katharine Harris (R-FL), who
are reportedly “Representative A” and “Representative B,” respectively, in Wade’s plea.
According to the USAO’s press release and the guilty plea, Wade made about $78,000 in “illegal campaign contributions” to these two – $32,000 to Harris and $46,000 to Goode. The contributions were illegal because Wade had his MZM employees and their spouses contribute under their own names, and then reimbursed them.
Wade says he did not tell either Harris or Goode that the contributions were illegal. But that doesn’t mean they come out of this looking good, either.
Wade asked that Goode request appropriations funding for an MZM facility in Goode’s district soon after he’d just delivered most of the $46K. This was at some unspecified time “in the spring” – the contributions were mostly made in March of 2005, so it can’t have been long. By June 2005, “Representative A [Goode] confirmed to Wade that the appropriations bill would include $9M for the facility and a related program.” Here’s a picture of Goode and Wade at the facility’s opening.
Harris comes out looking a little better. Wade approached her after delivering the $32K and the two dined at a “Washington D.C. restaurant.” According to the plea:
“At this dinner, Wade and [Harris] discussed, among other topics, the possibility of MZM’s hosting a fundraiser for [Harris] later in the year, and the possibility of obtaining funding and approval for a Navy counterintelligence program in [Harris’s] district and locating an MZM office in that district. Wade later prepared a proposal for the Navy counterintelligence program and submitted it to Harris’s staff.”
But, and here is where Harris gets off the hook a little: “The program was not funded.”
There’s also an an unidentifed Department of Defense official in the plea, whose son went to work for MZM (the job was paid for by the government in a reimbursement agreement with MZM) and who himself ultimately went to work for Wade. According to John Bresnahan of Roll Call, “Media reports have identified that official as William S. Rich Jr., former executive director for the Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center, and his son as William Scott Rich III.”
A note from TPM Reader AK …
Rwanda/Bosnia/Lebanon/Iraq
As I heard NPR’s reports about Sunis pulling shiites out of their homes (and prbably vice-versa), a chill went up my spine. I have no doubt that the worst is about to begin in Iraq with ethnic cleasnsing / mass murders/ Lebanon-style (Sabra and shatilla) civil war about to begin. And the US is stuck in the middle. While it would be great to get out right now (last month would have been better), the responsibility for everything is on us. We can’t leave now, and we will be blamed (mostly correctly) for all that is about to happen. I am filled with dread. Our leadership is still saying to hold the line, when the line is not there.
Fear and hate is a vicious combination, each feeding off the other, like a well-built fire.
Finally a Republican who admits to the Dems’ talking point! Randy “Duke” Cunningham cites “a culture of corruption in Washington.” That and other news of the day in today’s Daily Muck.
At MZM, Inc., it really was all in the family.
In today’s Daily Muck, I noted that in their story on Mitchell Wade’s guilty plea, The Washington Post identified the anonymous Defense Department “Official” as Robert Fromm. In that they differed from the Times and the SDUT, each of whom said that the unnamed official was William S. Rich, Jr.
According to the plea, after Wade arranged for his son to work for MZM, the “Official” gave Wade all sorts of help in winning contracts with the Defense Department. This went on for at least a year and a half until the “Official” decided just to go ahead and make things official and moved over to MZM himself.
This seemed like a perfect description of Rich, whose son worked for MZM and who himself eventually moved over to MZM.
I thought so too, and said this morning that I thought the Post had got it wrong.
But it turns out there was just so much corruption at MZM that it’s hard to keep the father-son sweatheart deal duos straight. In other words, yes, there was another father/son combination.
Walter Pincus at the Post, who reported on Rich’s work for MZM last year, told me that according to his sources, Robert Fromm’s son went to work for MZM in February, 2002. That matches up with the facts in the plea, which also says February, 2002. Rich’s son, William Scott Rich III, didn’t go to work for MZM until December 2002. Furthermore, Rich left the Pentagon to work for MZM in September 2003, long before the “Official” in the plea agreement, who left for MZM in July, 2004.
So there you have it: two defense officials, both in a position to help Wade win contracts, both of whom had sons go to work for Wade, and then went over themselves to work at MZM.
According to Pincus’ story last year, at least 16 Defense Department employees made their way over to MZM. Who knows how many other father/son or mother/daughter combinations were united there?
All apologies to the Post – and as for Robert Fromm, he’ll be making his Grand Ole Docket debut later in the day.
(Late Update: We’ve added the “Statement of Offenses” from Wade’s guilty plea to the TPM Document Collection. And Fromm has arrived in the Grand Ole Docket.)
Under every administration there are examples of individuals or tax exempt groups (associated with the opposing party) getting audited by the IRS. It always, or usually, looks a bit fishy. But there’s seldom any concrete evidence of politicized decision-making at the IRS to point to. So partisans on one side or another make their judgments in the absence of hard proof. And that’s pretty much where it ends.
There’s a astounding piece on page A3 of the Post today about one of these instances — only in this case there appears to be more or less conclusive evidence that it was a political hit.
The group is question is Texans for Public Justice — a outfit which had a lot to do with turning up the information about illegal fundraising and money distributions that eventually ended Tom DeLay’s reign as Majority Leader.
They got audited by the IRS. And after what was no doubt a lengthy process, they’ve been cleared.
But why were they audited?
Apparently the IRS audited TPJ because the IRS commissioner got a request for an audit from Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX.), a DeLay ally. And who put him up to it? Apparently, a DC lawyer named Barnaby W. Zall, whom the Post identifies as “close to DeLay and his fundraising apparatus.”
The whole episode got going when Johnson wrote to then-IRS commissioner Mark W. Everson and told him he had “uncovered some disturbing information” about TPJ and asked Everson to “to report back your findings of each of these investigations directly to me.”
Other material referenced in the Post piece shows that Zall was quite clear when he contacted Johnson that he was trying to protect DeLay.
Anyway, just so we’re all on the same page here. DeLay fundraising lawyer is worried that TPJ might end up deep-sixing the boss. DeLay fundraising lawyer contacts DeLay-lackey congressman and asks him to sic the IRS on TPJ. DeLay-lackey congressman does as he’s told. And so does the IRS. TPJ gets put the wringer for uncovering information about DeLay’s crimes.
With all the shenanigans we’ve seen from these characters in recent years, I can’t say I’m surprised. But I am astounded by how much evidence there appears to be as to just how this happened. Why isn’t Rep. Johnson in more hot water?
We’ve been banging the Don Young drum for a little while here at TPM, because it’s just not clear to us that Rep. Young (R-AK) really had “no personal or professional relationship” with Jack Abramoff, as he has claimed.
Now, it’s been reported already that Rep. Young used Abramoff’s skyboxes for fundraisers before Abramoff’s fall from grace. But to date, Rep. Young or his office has sort of muddled the significance 
of those ties by claiming that his campaign didn’t know in whose suite those events were held. (Never mind that the plaque at the door to the MCI Center suite said “Jack Abramoff”).
Today, however, we’re publishing a Team Abramoff email which puts those claims into further doubt.
The email is from Jennifer Calvert to Jack Abramoff and his then-assistant Susan Ralston.
At the time, Calvert was a member of Team Abramoff at Preston Gates, the law firm where Abramoff ran his operation until the end of 2000. In the email, Calvert tells Abramoff, “Don Young has asked for the use of our suites for some upcoming fundraisers”. (You can read the actual email here.)
That email seems pretty straightforward to us. Young apparently asked Calvert to ask Abramoff if he could use one of his skyboxes for his fundraisers. And that seems like some sort of a relationship.
We went back to Young’s office to get comment on this latest revelation. But the response seemed a bit off-point.
Young spokesman Grant Thompson emailed us back this reply:
“Mr Young does not feel it appropriate to comment on emails that are generated within a corporation. When you find communications from Mr Young or his staff, we will consider responding.”
We’re not sure what the problem is with commenting on emails “that are generated within a corporation.” And, as a response, it’s not exactly a denial – it’s more of a challenge. In fact, we appreciate Rep. Young’s confidence that we will ultimately find these communications. We’ll do our muckraker best not to let him down.
Wow. 34% approval rating for President Bush, according to the just-released CBS poll. I think even by the technical dictionary definition, that blows.
Here’s a question: who can put that into some historical perspective for us. What presidents got below the magic 35% line? And when? I think I have pretty clear recollection of Bush’s dad getting into similar territory in 1992. But who has more data?
Late Update: TPM Reader AJ sends in this helpful historical poll run-down. Perhaps more relevant is this run-down of second-term numbers from CBS.
Ha! I’m always the last to know. 
My friend Frank Foer is taking over as editor of The New Republic from Peter Beinart, also a friend.
As the article in the Times points out, it would really be more in character for the magazine if Peter were dangling upside-down from a lamppost Mussolini-style or already buried (editorially, if not literally) in some unmarked grave, near an abandoned farm, somewhere out in the wilds of western Maryland.
But, apparently, the whole thing is amiable on every side. And no one is the worse for wear.
Maybe it’s having four owners.
Congratulations to Frank.