Category: Politics
Duke to Judge: "You can only push a man so far, your honor"
The gigantic ego that is former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham has written an angry letter to his sentencing judge, complaining that the IRS is “killing” him and his family by seizing his remaining savings. Cunningham insists that as a highly decorated veteran, he deserves far better.
Writing from his minimum security Arizona prison, Cunningham tells Judge Larry Burns that he never would have pleaded guilty to taking bribes from a defense contractor and evading taxes in 2005 had he known the IRS — which he refers to at one point as the “KGB IRS” — would “renig” (sic) on the agreement and “keep me in poverty for the rest of my life.”
The IRS has taken everything I have worked for during my nearly 70 years. They have taken over or we have paid over 2.75 million dollars in assets, cash homes, cars, earnings and retirement. After 40 years teaching, my wife is living hand to mouth & staying in her 2-bedroom grandmother’s home. You can only push a man so far your honor. As one of the most highly decorated veterans in the history see note of this nation and a lifetime of service yes I made mistakes but that does not include killing me and my family.
Judge Burns responded to Cunningham in a letter dated Aug. 4, explaining that the money confiscated from Cunningham’s retirement and congressional pension was seized by the IRS to collect back taxes owed on the bribes he received in 2003 and 2004.
Duke’s defense attorney, K. Lee Blalack, had no comment.
The IRS found that Cunningham owed more than $1.13 million in back taxes, penalties and interest. The IRS is collecting this in 686 installments of $1,647 seized from Cunningham’s congressional and navy retirement benefits, his Social Security check, and his savings account, which contained $84,423.64.
Cunningham must also pay an additional $1.8 million in restitution to the IRS.
In the letter, Duke also accuses prosecutors in San Diego of lying over the reasons why he was never called to testify at the 2007 trial of defense contractor Brent Wilkes, who was convicted regardless of bribing Cunningham with cash, luxury travel and prostitutes. Wilkes is out on bond and playing poker while he appeals his 12-year sentence.
Duke’s missive to the judge follows his unsuccessful effort earlier this year to have his 100 month sentenced reduced for the “substantial assistance” he provided to the government. Defense lawyers say this assistance includes Duke’s willingness to phone to a co-conspirator, Thomas Kontogiannis, in calls that were recorded by the FBI and a willingness to testify at Wilkes’ trial.
In a July 28, 2008 letter to Blalack, U.S. Attorney Karen P. Hewitt acknowledged that Duke and his attorneys met repeatedly with federal authorities. Prosecutors say that they too did their best to extract substantial assistance from Cunningham. “Time and time again, however, he fell short of this goal,” prosecutors wrote.
Part of the problem was Cunningham’s inability to tell the truth without exaggerating, embellishing or minimizing his own conduct:
Moreover, Mr. Cunningham’s efforts were greatly tempered by the fact that many of our meetings with him were necessitated by his apparent retreat from the factual basis of his own plea agreement. See e.g., Letter to Wayne Winters, dated May 2, 2006, (“not all of what the press claimed was true or what I had to plead to — But [I] had to take the whole plea or nothing.”) At the opposite end of the spectrum, we were concerned that he would embellish facts if he thought doing so would improve his prospects for a sentencing reduction, as he did on at least one occasion…. In addition, his lack of candor before and after his plea (one example of which was the $50,000 in cash he left for his wife on the eve of his sentencing hearing) and the egregiousness of his crimes, presented the real risk that whichever side called him as a witness would be irreversibly tainted by such association. This may explain why Wilkes did not call him either, notwithstanding his counsel’s promise to do so.
Footnote:
Back to post This is yet another example of Cunningham’s well-known propensity to exaggerate his own accomplishments. He is NOT one of the most highly decorated veterans in U.S. history. He is not among the 3,446 recipients of the Medal of Honor, the highest award given for valor in combat. He received the Navy Cross, the second highest such honor.
Brent "The Enigma" Wilkes surfaces in attack ad
Free on bond, Brent “The Enigma” Wilkes is spending time at the poker table these days, but his scandalous past is featured in a new attack ad in Missouri’s Senate race.
Wilkes is referred to in the ad by Missouri Democrat Robin Carnahan he “defense contractor convicted of bribery” who provided private jet trips for her GOP opponent, Rep. Roy Blunt, the former House whip.
PoliticMo.com has the story here:
“One of the examples we touch on in the ad is the example of Brent Wilkes, the California defense contractor and lobbyist,” said Mindy Mazur, campaign manager for Robin Carnahan, in a conference call with journalists Wednesday. “Blunt – while he was there – helped whip the vote in favor of one of his companies.”
Mazur says, “Eight days later, Congressman Blunt received $14,000 from people associated with Brent Wilkes.”
While she says “he spent over 100,000 in legal fees related to the Wilkes case,” Mazur wasn’t sure if he had actually done anything illegal. “I would have to say the more we’ve learned about what congressman blunt’s been up to in washington, the more we’ve asked the same question [of legality].”
Wilkes was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2008 following his conviction on charges of bribery, money laundering and fraud. He was freed while his case is being appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Dana Perino Out as Mina Lobbyist
Dana Perino
My scoop was very short-lived. Two days later — and one day after The Washington Post’s SpyTalk picked up the item — Perino’s employer, Hamilton Place Strategies LLC filed notice that it was no longer taking up the cause of the mysterious Mina Corp./Red Star.
Congress wants to know whether the sole-source, classified contracts awarded to Mina Corp., Ltd., and Red Star Enterprises Ltd., were a vehicle for the U.S. government to deliver payoffs to the family of Kyrgyzstan leaders who were ousted amid charges of corruption linked to the Manas air base.
Senate lobbying disclosure forms show that on July 12 Mina Corp. hired public affairs firm Hamilton Place Strategies to lobby Congress and the Defense Department. Hamilton Place filed its notice of termination on July 28. The firm’s income from Mina was less than $5,000.
Mina also lost the services of Tony Fratto, another former Bush White House spokesman, and W. Taylor Griffin, a McCain/Palin adviser.
Seriously, WTF?
The Yacht Always Gets Them
A $1.8 million yacht purchased in Chula Vista figures in a U.S. bribery investigation of a senior official at Mexico’s state-run national electric utility.
The Mexican official, Nestor Moreno, received the yacht sold by the now-defunct South Shore Yacht Sales in Chula Vista.
South Shore Yacht Sales was registered to a Robin Goodman. County records show the business racked up tax liens in 2006 and 2008. An absentee judgement was recorded against Goodman and South Shore last year.
In addition to the yacht, Moreno allegedly received a $300,000 Ferrari Spider, and perhaps millions of dollars in cash in exchange for awarding a large contracts to firms in California and Texas, according to U.S. prosecutors.
Moreno’s name surfaced last week in U.S. District Court in Houston following the arrest of Angela Gomez Aguilar, a Mexican citizen.
Prosecutors say Gomez and her husband set up a company in Mexico that acted as an intermediary between Moreno and ABB Inc., the Swiss electrical engineering giant. Gomez also represented Lindsey Manufacturing of Azusa, California.
Moreno went on unpaid leave last week from Mexico’s national electricity monopoly, the Federal Electricity Commission, known as the CFE, after the allegations were published in the Houston Chronicle.
Relational Investors wants seats on Occidental's board
CalSTRS’ pay czar Ralph Whitworth wants to unseat the Occidental Petroleum board that made CEO Ray Irani one of the highest paid executives in the nation.
Irani made $857 million over the past decade, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
So Whitworth, who heads San Diego’s Relational Investors LLC, is teaming up with the California Teachers retirement system to knock some heads at OXY, according to the Journal.
The New York Times’ DealBook obtained CalSTRS and Relational’s letter, which you can read here.
Relational and Calstrs Letter to Occidental Petroleum
Whitworth tells DealBook that he senses “a palpable level of disgust among investor base here.”
Really? Where is “here?” Are we talking Ralph’s posh Rancho Santa Fe neighborhood?
Yes, Irani is overpaid. But Occidental shares returned 873 percent over the past decade.
What about Oracle? CalSTRS has 6.7 million shares in Oracle, whose CEO Larry Ellison, is the No. 1 most overpaid executive at a publicly-traded firm in the US, if not the world.
Ellison earned $1.85 billion in compensation over the past decade (more than double Irani’s pay), while Oracle’s shares returned far less. Why not kick up a fuss on the Oracle board?
Or what about Barry Diller who actually lost money for shareholders over the past decade (including CalSTRS) while taking home $1.1 billion in compensation.
And how about Whitworth, the man who paid Paul McCartney $1 million to sing at his now ex-wife’s Rancho Santa Fe birthday party? How much does he make? He won’t tell us, and since he works for a private company, he doesn’t have to.
Well, what about the money Whitworth paid to middlemen like Tullig Inc. to land CalPERS as his biggest investor?
And how much has this “activist” style of investing generated for CalSTRS?
Far, far less than Occidental Petroleum did.
Trump / Russia 