Amazon.com Widgets

As featured on p. 218 of "Bloggers on the Bus," under the name "a MyDD blogger."

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Grand Old Police Blotter

I never got around to mentioning that Mitchell Wade, the defense contractor who bribed disgraced Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (and Cunningham had a frickin' bribe MENU) pleaded guilty in federal court last week. He also admitted to bribing others:

Wade, former president of defense contractor MZM Inc. in Washington, also acknowledged making nearly $80,000 in illegal campaign contributions in the names of MZM employees and their spouses to two other members of Congress, who were not identified. The lawmakers apparently were unaware the donations were illegal, according to court papers.


Surely they were unaware. I mean, when you get $32,000 worth of contributions, all from the same out-of-district city, from employees of the same company, all on the same day, that would never raise an eyebrow, right? How could they possibly fathom that it was coordinated?

Look, you don't bribe anybody unless they know about it. Otherwise it kind of defeats the purpose of a bribe.

The Congressmen in question have been alleged to be Virgil Goode of Virginia, and (surprise!) Cruella de Ville herself, Katherine Harris of Florida. She denied any knowledge and I believe that much in the same way that a firefighter denies any knowledge of smoke. By the way, MZM Inc., Wade's company, was Harris' largest contributor last cycle.

Cruella might be running for Senate for reasons we didn't expect; not to win there, but to get out of the House before she gets herself convicted.

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