SDUT: Lewis and Cunningham, “Frightening” DuoThe Los Angeles Times broke the story yesterday that federal prosecutors were investigating Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), particularly for his relationship with lobbyist Bill Lowery. This was a spin-off of the Duke Cunningham investigation, Peter Pae reported, but it wasn’t clear just how closely related it was.
But it seems that you needn’t look too far to connect Cunningham and Lewis. As Jerry Kammer and Dean Calbreath report in today’s San Diego Union-Tribune, the two tag teamed to push through Brent Wilkes‘ contracts:
Lewis and Cunningham also worked in tandem on Pentagon funding requests that came before the Appropriations Committee, defense contractors and military analysts have told the Union-Tribune.
“Lewis and Duke worked together, exerting a lot of control. It was pretty frightening,” said a San Diego military contractor who dealt with both Lewis and Cunningham.
The contractor spoke on the condition of anonymity because he didn’t want to jeopardize his professional relationships in Washington, D.C….
According to government and defense industry sources, Lewis and Cunningham worked together to help Poway military contractor Brent Wilkes as he pursued contracts on Capitol Hill. Cunningham admitted taking bribes from Wilkes, who has been identified as co-conspirator No. 1 in Cunningham’s plea agreement.
On April 15, 1999, three months after Lewis was named chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, he received $17,000 in campaign contributions from Wilkes and his associates. At the time, Wilkes was vying for a project to digitize military documents in the Panama Canal Zone, which the United States was about to return to Panama.
“If you can’t go to people on Capitol Hill, it’s very difficult to remain viable as a government contractor,” said one of Wilkes’ associates who contributed money to Lewis at the time. “You have to talk to people. And to talk to people, you have to give money.”
But the Panama project hit a snag. The Pentagon did not want to give Wilkes as much money as he requested.
On July 6, 1999, Wilkes wrote to Cunningham saying “We need $10 m(illion) more immediately . . . This is very important and if you cannot resolve this others will be calling also.”
Wilkes’ memo – contained in federal documents accompanying Cunningham’s guilty plea – then named two people whose names were blacked out by the prosecutors.
Laura Rozen points out that at least one of those two names looks like it starts with a J…
Update: There was even more on Lewis and Cunningham’s bullying in this LA Times piece Monday.
