{"id":6076,"date":"2005-12-14T09:42:35","date_gmt":"2005-12-14T14:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6076"},"modified":"2005-12-14T09:42:35","modified_gmt":"2005-12-14T14:42:35","slug":"finding-the-nexus-between-duke-and-delay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/finding-the-nexus-between-duke-and-delay\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding the nexus between Duke and DeLay"},"content":{"rendered":"

For months it seemed that the ethical\/legal crises for Tom DeLay and Randy “Duke” Cunningham were two equally-outrageous but unconnected scandals. Cunningham was taking bribes from defense contractors; DeLay was skirting campaign finance rules and doing illegitimate favors for corrupt lobbyists.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, there may have been a connection<\/a> after all.<\/p>\n

Texas prosecutors in the criminal case against Representative Tom DeLay revealed in subpoenas made public Tuesday that they were investigating ties between Mr. DeLay and a lobbyist who is at the center of a bribery scandal that prompted another House Republican to resign from Congress last month.<\/p>\n

The subpoenas sought documents from the lobbyist, Brent Wilkes, a California businessman whose lawyers have confirmed that he is one of four unnamed co-conspirators listed in the criminal charges against former Representative Randy Cunningham, the California Republican who pleaded guilty to taking at least $2.4 million in bribes.<\/p>\n

Mr. Wilkes was close to several Republican members of Congress, including Mr. Cunningham and Mr. DeLay, Republican of Texas, who traveled as Mr. Wilkes’s guest in a private jet he partly owned.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Specifically prosecutors in DeLay’s Texas case are interested in a $15,000 contribution Wilkes’ company made to DeLay’s Texans for a Republican Majority PAC. Also of interest is the fact that Wilkes hired Christine DeLay’s consulting firm.<\/p>\n

As Judd put it<\/a>, “Small world. Very small.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For months it seemed that the ethical\/legal crises for Tom DeLay and Randy “Duke” Cunningham were two equally-outrageous but unconnected scandals. Cunningham was taking bribes from defense contractors; DeLay was skirting campaign finance rules and doing illegitimate favors for corrupt lobbyists. As it turns out, there may have been a connection after all. Texas prosecutors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}