Grand Jury Investigates Hookergate; Who’s Next?Yesterday we learned that the president of Shirlington Limousine denied a request from the House Homeland Security Committee to appear because he’s given testimony before a grand jury.
That means prosecutors are pushing for the third set of charges in the Cunningham investigation (the Duke and his coconspirator Mitchell Wade pled guilty). But who do they have in mind?
Well, the lawyer for Shirlington President Christopher Baker told The Washington Post that the grand jury, before which Baker has already testified, is based in San Diego.
San Diego has been the hub for most of the Duke Cunningham investigation. The U.S. Attorney’s Office there headed up the case, and that’s where Duke pled guilty. And since Brent Wilkes, one of Duke’s two main coconspirators, was based out of San Diego, that same office has been the one pursuing the case against him. Mitchell Wade, the other major player in Duke’s case, was based in D.C. and pled guilty in February to the U.S. Attorney’s Office there.
Wilkes is, in every respect, the San Diego office’s unfinished business. Unlike Wade, he’s held out. Now, Wade, who’s been cooperating closely with investigators for almost a year now, was the source of most of the facts against Duke. Investigators have no doubt been spending their time pumping Wade for information on Wilkes and his misdeeds — Wade, for instance, was the one who originally told them about Wilkes’ parties.
So Brent Wilkes has the most to fear. And remember that Wilkes is a big fish - who was close to Tom DeLay, DeLay bagman and superlobbyist Ed Buckham, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), lobbyist Bill Lowery, and yes, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) (more on that later).
But don’t forget about Dusty Foggo, the former #3 at the CIA, who attended Wilkes’ poker parties and allegedly gave Wilkes an inside line on CIA contracts. When Foggo’s house and office were raided a month ago, the FBI and CIA were working alongside prosecutors from the San Diego office.
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