The prosecution wrapped up its case against Brent Wilkes with testimony from Joel Combs, Wilkes’ nephew and right-hand man, followed by the coup de grace: the two prostitutes who serviced Wilkes and the congressman in Hawaii. Federal prosecutors had lulled the jury to sleep at first, but they ended with a devastating blow to the defendant, and I’m not sure how or if he’ll be able to recover.

Joel Combs had just gotten out of college when he went to work for his uncle’s startup company in 1995. Combs became his uncle’s man in Washington, and it wasn’t long before he was flying on private jets with Majority Leader Tom DeLay and House Speaker Denny Hastert back when they were two of the most powerful men in Washington.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Combs had to tell all to save his own skin. He did so with a great deal of composure, speaking mostly in one or two-word responses to questions about his uncle’s relationship with Duke Cunningham.

Q. What would Duke do for your uncle?

A. Anything.

or this…

Q. What type of access did your uncle have to Duke?

A. Essentially unlimited.

Q. What do you mean by that?

A. He could get Duke on the phone anytime, any place.

Q. What did he do to get this access?

A. He treated him really well.

Combs effectively brought the government’s case full circle, tying together all the strands that prosecutors had laid out for the jury. He cleared up the issue of intent I alluded to in my previous post and he gave jurors a glimpse of Wilkes with his guard down.

Through Combs’ testimony, Wilkes emerges as a savvy operator who had Cunningham’s number. Duke’s limited intelligence was something of a joke to Wilkes, Combs said. Wilkes instructed his employees to laugh at the Duke’s jokes, to find him interesting and pretend to be in awe of him. Wilkes told his employee to lose to Duke at poker and he yelled at one man who wasn’t losing enough.

Prosecutor Phil Halpern skilfully led Combs through bribe after bribe: a jet dock, a laptop computer, computer software for Duke’s boat, hundreds of meals at The Capital Grille restaurant, a ticket to the 2003 Super Bowl, golf, charter jet flights, machine gun lessons, and finally a pair of prostitutes.

The prostitutes came during a lavish 2003 Hawaii vacation, which was intended to get back in Duke’s good graces. Mitchell Wade had double-crossed Wilkes by going behind his back to develop his own corrupt relationship with Cunningham. In Wilkes’ words, “Mitch was upping the ante,” Combs said.

Wilkes flew Cunningham to Hawaii’s Big Island where the contractor had rented a private, beachside guest cottage for $6,600 a night. Upon arrival, Wilkes told Combs to get two girls. Combs dialed up a local escort service.

The women arrived with their driver around 11 p.m. that night. Combs answered the door, paid the driver $600 as arranged, and led the women to the back of the suite. There, Wilkes and Cunningham were lounging in the hot tub, smoking cigars.

Wilkes’ attorney, Mark Geragos, did what he could with Combs, but his wounds were all superficial. Yes, Combs had lied when FBI agents first questioned him, but that’s not much of a surprise. And some details of his story about the hookers had changed (i.e. he first said he called the escort service from the hotel phone, and then said he used his cell phone). The plain fact is I think Combs was telling the truth in court.

After Geragos spent a few hours tearing into Combs, the prosecution brought out the icing on their cake: the two prostitutes and their driver. I’ve written up an account of their testimony for the political blog, Wonkette, which you can find here.

Sorry for the delay in blogging. The trial had been a snooze-fest (The judge’s clerk passed him a note Thursday that read “Mayday, mayday, jurors are falling asleep”) but things got pretty interesting Friday. Family and friends kept me busy this weekend so I’m just now getting a chance to set my thoughts down.

The prosecution at the trial of defense contractor Brent Wilkes began Friday morning by calling one of its star witnesses, a man by the name of Mitchell Wade. Wade has pleaded guilty to supply Cunningham bribes that total more than $2 million, including a Rolls-Royce and the infamous Duke-Stir yacht. He spent most of the day in the witness box, testifying in hopes of a reduced sentence, or as Cunningham himself put it, trying to save his donkey.

I was very interested to hear what Wade had to say. Aside from a brief apology during his plea hearing last year, Wade has kept silent. When I went to his Great Falls, Virginia the estate (named “Windy Knoll”) to try and interview him, Wade waved at me through the window and then made his wife answer the door. Wade’s DC law firm WilmerHale has shielded him the way the Patriots offensive line protects Tom Brady.

Wade was the government’s best witness so far. He was completely honest and frank about his own greed and treachery, and that made for some pretty compelling testimony. The jurors seemed pretty interested, too. Wade seems to have lost weight from the time the above photo was taken. He spoke precisely, in a hushed voice, almost like he didn’t want everybody to hear. If Wilkes walks, it won’t be Wade’s fault.

Part of the credit goes to prosecutor Jason Forge, who did an excellent job leading the direct examination. His questions were simple and straightforward and he kept things moving right along. There was none of the awkwardly phrased questions or the avalanche of boring detail that has characterized much of the government’s case.

Wade has clearly given the prosecutors a lot to work with. He was introduced to Duke by Brent Wilkes, who hired Wade as a consultant in 1998. Wade described Cunningham, accurately, as a man of below average intelligence. He testified that he and Wilkes came to dread dinners with the Duke and hearing him tell the same stories over and over.

Part of Wade’s job was to take care of Defense Department officials who got in Wilkes’ way, and he often used Duke to do it. One of the pieces of evidence he testified about was a script he wrote for the congressman to put pressure on a Defense Department official. To keep things clear, Wade wrote out “I (Duke)…”

What Wade learned from Wilkes convinced him he could expand his own business and he began to cultivate his own relationship with the congressman in 2001, without telling Wilkes. When Duke asked him for $50,000 at the end of 2001, Wade viewed it as an opportunity. “I wanted to solicit the same favors and benefits that Brent did,” he said.

Wade soon had his own stash of blank stationery from Cunningham’s congressional office upon which he could write missives in Duke’s name to bully whomever he wanted. And Duke started the appropriations flowing to Wade’s company, MZM Inc. The one-man consultancy grew into a sizable defense contractor headquartered near DuPont Circle in a few years.

Amazingly, Wade was still working for Wilkes while this was going on. Eventually, Wilkes’ government contracts started going to Wade, and the game was up. But Wade was raking it in. He and Wilkes delivered worthless crap like off-the-shelf computer equipment to the government and then marked it up as much as 600 percent. The bureaucrats who knew what was going were too scared to stop it. “It was not my finest hour,” said one.

Wilkes’ defense attorney, Mark Geragos, pointed out that most of the bribes that Wade knew about were paid for out of his pocket. Wilkes did buy the congressman a lot of expensive dinners at The Capital Grille, as well as a trip to the Four Seasons in Las Vegas in 1999 (although Wade paid the hotel bill himself.) Wade also overheard Duke on the phone with Wilkes in 2004 and heard Cunningham demanding that Wilkes deliver $500,000 “right away.”

As effective as Wade was, I was still left hungry for more. What did Wilkes do for Cunningham besides buy him dinner? Is that even bribery in Washington? As several of the prosecution’s witnesses have pointed out, when congressmen dine with lobbyists at The Capital Grille they don’t reach for their wallets.

I’m not a lawyer (I can almost see the prosecutors reading this nodding their heads in agreement) but I think the government hasn’t established a crucial element of the charges against Wilkes: intent.

It’s clear that money and favors went from Wilkes to Duke; Wilkes wrote checks and the money wound up in the congressman’s bank accounts. It’s also clear that Duke went around pounding his chest every time a DoD bureaucrat questioned the job Wilkes was doing. What’s missing is evidence linking the two.

Prosecutors in my view haven’t yet shown that Wilkes gave Cunningham money with the intent of corrupting him, the quid pro quo. Yes, Wilkes was buying dinners and writing checks, but were these payments intended to corrupt the congressman? So far, the evidence is circumstantial: Wilkes bought dinners and wrote checks; Duke went far out of his way to help him.

In other words, they have shown that Wilkes had a gun and someone got shot, but haven’t yet proven that he pulled the trigger.

Day Three was deadly boring. Even Judge Burns thought so. One juror fell asleep listening to testimony that took about three times longer than necessary. There was a mountain of detail about the history of Pentagon document scanning and what Wilkes did or didn’t do in the 1990s. Burns warned prosecutors to move things along or he would cut them short. I chatted with one witness outside court and he was unsure why he was there He hadn’t seen Wilkes in more than a decade. At least he could retreat to the Westin when he was off the stand. Isn’t this a bribery case? With hookers?

Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s favorite restaurant was The Capital Grille, a high-end steakhouse six blocks from the Capitol. At day two of the trial of alleged Cunningham briber Brent Wilkes in San Diego, jurors were shown a series of photo exhibits of the Grille’s interior with its faux columns and its “wine kiosk,” a gilded monstrosity that looked something like the ark where you find Torah scrolls in synagogue.

Prosecutors called Clifford Horsfall, a Capital Grille waiter. Horsfall was as disheveled a witness as I’ve ever seen. He showed up unshaven with sunglasses perched on his head in blue jeans and a T-shirt with a pinup girl that read “Cocktails.” He wasn’t classy, but he was a good witness.

• In the 13 years that he has waited tables at The Capital Grille, Horsfall said he could never remember a congressman ever picking up the tab while dining with a lobbyist.
• Horsfall never saw anyone take a congressman out to dinner more than defense contractor Brent Wilkes and his ex-compadre, Mitch Wade.
• Duke’s favorite wine was from Silver Oak Cellars in California, which ran $100 to $150 a bottle.
• Duke was a “typical congressman” when it came to tipping on the rare occasions he actually paid for his own meals. That means 15 percent.

Another Washington eatery mentioned at the trial was La Colline, a now-defunct French restaurant on Capitol Hill. In 2004, Duke was invited to dine there along with his defense appropriations staffer, Nancy Lifset. Other guests included Jennifer Thompson, a staffer working on the House Armed Services Committee; Erica Stribel, another appropriations staffer; and Defense Appropriations subcommittee staffer Sarah Young and others.

The La Colline event was organized by NorthPoint Strategies, a lobbying firm whose three principals are all former Cunningham chiefs of staff. In an e-mail, NorthPoint said the event wasn’t a fund-raiser but rather a “fun raiser.” Picking up the dinner tab was Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group, a real estate investment trust or REIT. Why an REIT would want to cozy up to defense appropriations staffers wasn’t explained.

The subject of La Colline was very discomfiting to a witness named Frank Collins, Cunningham’s first chief of staff who went on to found NorthPoint. Collins was grilled by Wilkes’ defense attorney, Mark Geragos, about the dinner and he started squirming a bit in the witness box. Things went downhill for him from there. Geragos made him seem like a liar for changing his definition of an earmark.

Before Geragos tore into him, Collins testified that he had warned Duke when the congressman joined the uber-powerful Defense Appropriations Subcommittee that he would suddenly have new best friends show up at his doorstep. One of those new friends was Brent Wilkes. A few weeks after Collins left Duke’s office, Wilkes FedExed him an unsolicited check for $5,000, which Collins mailed back.

In 2001, Collins learned that Duke was selling his yacht Kelly C to Wilkes. Collins said the sale didn’t pass what he called “The Washington Post test.” In other words, it would be bad if the newspaper found out about it. Duke cried when confronted about the sale, which the congressman admitted he knew was the wrong thing to do. What Collins didn’t know was that Cunningham had already pocketed $100,000 for the boat.

Geragos and prosecutor Phil Halpern continued to go at each other as Collins was testifying. Their jousting had Judge Larry Burns wagging his finger at them to behave themselves. Halpern, however, was less shrill than last week. Maybe he’s one of the four people reading this blog?

The trial of Brent Wilkes finally got underway here in San Diego. I thought that by now everyone in San Diego had heard of Wilkes, who’s accused of bribing former Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham. Most people in the jury pool said they had not, and some knew only vaguely of the Duke’s downfall.

As saturated as this city has been by news of Cunningham, I find that hard to believe. I think prospective jurors were chomping at the bit to get at the trial. How many other trials feature a disgraced congressman and his hookers? I thought I saw a winner’s smile cross the face of a few of the lucky seven women and five men.

Representing Wilkes is Mark Geragos (of Michael Jackson/Scott Peterson/Winona Ryder fame). I didn’t really understand why he represents so many celebrities until yesterday. Geragos is a treat to watch in court. He’s engaging, funny, and he’s done this so many times he stays completely relaxed and avoids being rude.

Geragos is facing what he referred to as the “Gang of Four,” a quartet of dark-suited federal prosecutors. What is it with the feds and dark suits? The agents who investigated the case formed a blue wall in the back of the courtroom. Geragos with his lavender ties and grey suits, looks like a peacock by comparison.

Prosecutor Phil Halpern made the opening statement for the government. He began with these words: “Lies. Deceit. Greed. Most of all greed. In many respects, this case is all about greed.” Wilkes, he said, had gotten rich by corrupting Duke. Sitting at the defense table, Wilkes literally got redder and redder as Halpern went on.

It was a strong opening, but then Halpern lost steam. He veered into a civics lesson on the appropriations process followed by a history of Wilkes’ career in the automated document scanning business. Zzzzzzzz.

Worse, Halpern overplayed a strong hand with a PowerPoint presentation littered with tabloid-style bullet points. Wilkes had “a congressman in his pocket.” Members of the House Appropriations Committee have their hands “on the piggy bank.” Getting on the committee is like being the first kid on the block to have a new Nintendo, he said.

He kept putting his little twist on things, insulting the jury’s intelligence. I don’t know why he didn’t just let the evidence speak for itself. He’s got hookers in Hawaii and $700,000 in bribes to buy a yacht and pay off a mortgage on a mansion for a congressman who is as corrupt as you can get. Plus, he’s got an arrogant defendant. No need to overdo it, Phil.

Geragos repeatedly objected that Halpern was not stating the facts like he was supposed to but arguing them, which is what you do at the end of a trial. When the jury went home for the day, Geragos asked for mistrial.

Now, Judge Larry Burns had spent most of the day picking a jury, so there was no way he was going to go for that. I’d bet Geragos himself knew there was no way the judge would say agree. Even so, Halpern lost his cool. He started laying into Geragos for missing filing deadlines and other assorted sins. Judge Burns said it reminded him of arguments he has had with his wife.

Halpern will pick up his opening on Tuesday. We’ll see if he tones things down a bit then.