Corruption Capers Continue
from the rolling Stone, via think progress via ....
Rolling Stone : Culture of Corruption, Indeed: "What does a disgraced former House majority leader do when forced to abandon all hopes of reclaiming his post? If you're Tom DeLay you take the House Appropriations Committee slot vacated by criminally corrupt congressman Randy 'Duke' Cunningham.
As the folks at ThinkProgress remind us, Cunningham's top 'co-conspirator' -- military contractor Brent Wilkes -- is also tight with DeLay. Very tight.
From the San Diego Tribune:
Wilkes... kept his donations flowing, targeting people with clout over the Pentagon budget [including] $30,000 to Tom DeLay, who flew on Wilkes' jet several times and has been a frequent golfing buddy.
Over the past three years, Wilkes' lobbying group in Washington -- Group W Advisors -- also paid about $630,000 in lobbying fees to Alexander Strategy Group, a firm headed by DeLay's former chief of staff Ed Buckham and staffed with former DeLay employees. The firm has a well-publicized reputation in Washington as a conduit to DeLay's office.
'The Alexander lobbyist's sales pitch was, 'Either you hire me or DeLay is going to screw you,''an anonymous source identified as a top Republican lobbyist told the Congressional Quarterly weekly last month. 'It was not really a soft sell.' "