Brent Wilkes

Wilkes Subpoena Tear Continues! Senators, Admin Officials on Wilkes' List

Paul Kiel | September 27, 2007, 11:32AM

As if serving subpoenas on twelve members of the House wasn't enough, Brent Wilkes' lawyers apparently issued subpoenas to a number of senators and administration figures as well, it was disclosed today. At least two of those subpoenas, however, have not been served yet.

In a filing today by the House's lawyers seeking to quash the twelve subpoenas, the House's general counsel reveals that he'd been advised by an investigator for Wilkes' lawyer Mark Geragos earlier this month that subpoenas had also been issued to:

-- Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID)
-- Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
-- Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI)
-- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
-- White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten
-- Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
-- Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England.

A spokesperson for Sen. Levin said that he had not been served with a subpoena, and a spokesman for Sen. Rockefeller said the same, adding that the Senate legal counsel had told him that they hadn't received anything. So it may be that Geragos has decided to hold off serving those additional subpoenas, at least for now. (Update: Sen. Craig's spokesman also said that he had not been served. Later Update: Ditto for Sen. Inouye.)

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Duke Cunningham

House Moves to Block Alleged Briber's Subpoenas

Paul Kiel | September 27, 2007, 10:37AM

As expected, the House of Representatives' general counsel filed a motion yesterday arguing that none of the 12 lawmakers subpoenaed by Brent Wilkes should have to show.

Wilkes, remember, is on the hook for allegedly bribing Duke Cunningham. When pressed by the House's lawyers, his lawyer refused to reveal the method behind the madness, only insisting that all 12 lawmakers show up to testify at Wilkes' trial.

The House's lawyers argued that the information sought by Wilkes is "absolutely privileged" under the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution.

Brent Wilkes

Prosecutors Try to Preempt "Duke Made Me Do It" Defense

Paul Kiel | September 25, 2007, 12:07PM

In his first big interview after coming under suspicion for bribing Duke Cunningham, Brent Wilkes told The New York Times last year that he'd been a victim of the system. "I played by their rules," he said, "and I played to win." If Brent Wilkes is under investigation, he was saying, everyone should be under investigation. It was a system of "transactional lobbying," where lawmakers shook down those who were seeking government contracts.

Not so fast, say prosecutors. In a 13-page filing today, they make a variety of arguments for why Wilkes should not be able to argue at trial that he was coerced into bribing Cunningham. At base, however, is their common sense assertion that nobody put a gun to Wilkes' head -- not back in the 90's when he started bribing Cunningham, not in 2005 when he gave Duke his last bribe, and certainly not in 2003, when the two were relaxing in a hot tub in Hawaii with two prostitutes:

The overt acts in the Superseding Indictment... include a plethora of bribes that defendant Wilkes provided Cunningham over about a decade, including over $100,000 in 2000, and over $500,000 in 2004. The two remained friendly enough throughout this period that they shared numerous vacations, including a vacation in Hawaii in August 2003, during which Wilkes and Cunningham relaxed in a hot tub with prostitutes hired by Wilkes. No reasonable juror could believe that during that long period, despite outward appearances, Wilkes was secretly operating under a imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death, or some other harm sufficient to justify bribery, and could never find a way to inform law enforcement of such threats.

Duke Cunningham

Feds Allege Cunningham Conspirator Hid Docs Near Stash of "Embarrassing" Items

Paul Kiel | September 25, 2007, 11:25AM

Yet another stop in the tour of all-around muck that is the Duke Cunningham case.

In a filing today, prosecutors allege that John Michael, who's been indicted for laundering Cunningham's bribes and lying to investigators, hid incriminating documents by keeping them with what prosecutors call "a stash of personal entertainment materials and paraphernalia." You can read the filing here.

The prosecutors don't identify exactly what those items are, but note that "Michael has expressed extreme embarrassment" over them and that "their nature objectively supports his perspective" (read: he has good reason to be embarrassed). They say that they'll identify the materials at a court hearing if need be.

Prosecutors want to introduce evidence of Michael's embarrassing "stash," in order to prove that he knew the Cunningham documents were, in their own way, as embarrassing. That he kept documentation of Cunningham's sketchy mortgage details in a place where he also stored "materials he did not want to anyone else to learn about" proves, they write, that he knew he was up to no good.

Part of the indictment against Michael, the nephew to Greek man of mystery Thomas Kontogiannis -- prosecutors call Michael and Kontogiannis "professional money launderers" -- is that he obstructed justice by forging record of the Cunningham mortgages and hiding others.

Michael is scheduled to go on trial along with Brent Wilkes in October, but a later trial date is expected to be set.