Once former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) realized that prosecutors had him dead to rights, he agreed to cooperate with them, even before he publicly acknowledged his guilt. In fact, as it turns out, the ol’ Duke was wearing a wire.
Washington’s power players have always bragged about being well-wired, but for disgraced former congressman Duke Cunningham, “wired” wasn’t just a figure of speech. In a week when legislators are focused on the question of who else might be brought down by ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s cooperation with prosecutors as he seeks lenient sentencing over his two federal guilty pleas this week, sources tell TIME that in a separate investigation, ex-Rep. Cunningham wore a wire to help investigators gather evidence against others just before copping his own plea.
Sources familiar with the situation say Cunningham, a California Republican who pleaded guilty Nov. 28 to taking $2.4 million in bribes — including a yacht, a Rolls Royce and a 19th Century Louis-Philippe commode — from a defense contractor, wore a wire at some point during the short interval between the moment he began cooperating with the feds and the announcement of his guilty plea on Nov. 28.
If you’re a Republican House member, this isn’t the way you wanted to end the week. It was bad enough when Jack Abramoff struck a plea deal and agreed to give up all of his Republican friends in Congress, but knowing that federal prosecutors were listening in on conversations they had with Cunningham opens up yet another can of worms. Who did he speak with? It’s unclear, though Time said it’s “the source of furious — and nervous — speculation by congressional Republicans.”
A Cunningham lawyer wouldn’t say whether Cunningham will implicate any other members of Congress, but I think Kevin Drum speaks for all of us when he says, “It just makes all our liberal hearts go pitty pat, doesn’t it?”