1993 Campaign Funding Investigation
Wilson was interviewed at Justice Department headquarters in April 1993 about loans he made to his Principle Campaign Committee. He said he had loaned the PCC over $200,000 since 1980, and that he was currently owed $25,000.
The FBI interviewed a female aide to Wilson who prepared his reports to the Federal Elections Commission even though she told the FBI she had no training on how to prepare such documents. Another aide also said she wasn’t trained an cried during an interview with FBI agents, telling them “I know I’ve made mistakes” and that some financial procedures “fell through the cracks.” Wilson was known to hire good-looking female congressional aides, collectively known as “Charlie’s Angels.”
By December 1993, the investigation had been closed. The Federal Election Commission imposed a $90,000 civil penalty on the Wilson committee because their reports failed to note personal loans he had taken from the account (More on that here.)
What’s Missing: The 1980 Cocaine Investigation
One of the most memorable scenes in “Charlie Wilson’s War” features Hanks’ Wilson in a hot tub in Las Vegas in the summer of 1980 with two showgirls wearing only high heels. The movie and the book it was based on claim that federal prosecutors spend weeks trying to reconstruct what the congressman did in the Fantasy Suite of Caesar’s Palace that night and whether or not any white powder ended up in Wilson’s nasal cavity. The criminal probe into drug use on Capitol Hill was led by then-federal prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani.
“The Feds spent a million bucks trying to figure out whether, when those fingernails passed under my nose, did I inhale or exhale and I ain’t telling,” Wilson recalled in the book.
But according to FBI records, Giuliani didn’t bring the bureau into the loop: there’s no record of such a probe in Wilson’s FBI file.
There’s also nothing in the FBI’s file about Wilson’s work with the CIA to supply the resistance in Afghanistan. Before his death, Wilson said that President Barack Obama was in a “very tough situation” in Afghanistan and recommended he “make a calculated withdrawal.”
Late Update: Wilson’s FBI file embedded below. We miss anything? E-mail me at ryan (at) talkingpointsmemo.com
Additional reporting by Melissa Jeltsen.
Disqus Conversations
Click here to read the Disqus Commenting FAQ.