It Couldn't Happen To A Nicer Guy, Part 2

by hilzoy

Roll call, via, ThinkProgress, via TPM:

"Federal agents on Friday searched the offices of a defense contractor tied to Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.) as well as the boat Cunningham lived on for more than a year, the latest sign of a growing investigation into the relationship between Cunningham and Mitchell Wade, founder of MZM Inc.

A federal task force that includes officials from the U.S. Attorney’s offices in both Washington, D.C, and San Diego, the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and Defense Criminal Investigative Service conducted the searches, according to Debbie Weierman, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Washington office.

Weierman would not discuss details of the probe, although she confirmed that the FBI has “some operations that are going on today” related to the Cunningham investigation."

For your delectation, here (via TPM again) are some pictures of: the house Rep.Cunningham bought for 2.55 million; another house (er, teardown) in the same neighborhood selling for about the same price, and a rather less nice house in the same neighborhood selling for about twice as much.

Now, if this scandal takes down Katherine Harris, my joy will be complete.

Comments

[Tad Brennan]

"...my joy will be complete."

Nah--hold out for for than that, fer heaven's sake. World peace, for instance. Universal health care. An undiscovered manuscript of Kant's earliest ethical musings. "Don't postpone joy" really means "don't postpone the partial stuff, or sulk because it's partial". But complete joy you can wait a while longer for--it certainly isn't worth blowing on the downfall of a third-rate political hack.

[hilzoy]

You're right. Much as it pains me to admit it. (Well, actually, that's not all that much.)

[rilkefan]

hilzoy, did you hear Rove leaked Plame to Cooper?

[hilzoy]

rilkefan: no, but now I have. Thanks. This is very interesting. Thanks for pointing me to it. Any views on the implications of it all?

(Somehow, the speech ten days ago, or whatever, is coming into focus for me now...)

[hilzoy]

Meanwhile...

"Late word has it that twenty federal agents raided Duke's place in Rancho Santa Fe this afternoon. Just so you can keep track, that's the place he bought with Mitch Wade's cash, not the place he sold Wade. And that comes on the heels of the raids earlier in the day at MZM headquarters and down at the Yacht Club on the Duke Stir.

One other point to note: In each of these raids, on hand have been personnel from the Defense Criminal Investigative Service.

As you'd expect from the title, those are the DOD's cops, specifically, the investigative arm of the Pentagon Inspector General's office. They're not there because some backbencher like Duke got paid too much for his house. Almost certainly, they're there because of military contracting fraud, or the suspicion thereof.

And tell me this isn't related to the Pentagon decision earlier this week to halt all new work for MZM, Inc. Just a new interpretation of some obscure contracting, right?"

(cite)

[rilkefan]

Did I break the blog?

[hilzoy]

No; I think I read last time I logged in that Typepad was going to have "improvements". My heart sank.

I am holding off on breaking out the champagne until I find more confirmation of this. (I once met Larry O'Donnell, actually. Friend of friend. He was very smart, but somewhat obnoxious, and a bit glib.)

[rilkefan]

I don't understand the law enough to judge the importance of the Rove thing, but as with the above scandal, every little bit helps the Dems after some threshold - in particular, if the press decides or realizes that the admin is scandal-plagued, there could be a phase change.

Short term I guess the vacancy on the court has sucked all the oxygen from the fire.

[esmom]

We need Katherine Harris to stay right where she is. She has announced a run for the Senate, challenging Bill Nelson. If she does manage to win the Republican primary, Nelson will win in a walk. That's why George and Jeb are trying to have her withdraw. The longer she remains a candidate, the less time they have to groom a more viable candidate.

[esmom]

We need Katherine Harris to stay right where she is. She has announced a run for the Senate, challenging Bill Nelson. If she does manage to win the Republican primary, Nelson will win in a walk. That's why George and Jeb are trying to have her withdraw. The longer she remains a candidate, the less time they have to groom a more viable candidate.

[dmbeaster]

hilzoy and rilkefan:

You may have already seen this, but its the backdrop on the significance of the Cooper info. Talk Left via Atrios. It appears the prosecutor is angling for a perjury rap on Rove for allegedly denying that he was the leaker. Cooper and Miller would show the lie. That would certainly explain why Cooper and Miller had good reasons in addition to jounrnalism privilege to not want to be the ones who might finger Rove for perjury.

[dmbeaster]

hilzoy and rilkefan:

You may have already seen this, but its the backdrop on the significance of the Cooper info. Talk Left via Atrios. It appears the prosecutor is angling for a perjury rap on Rove for allegedly denying that he was the leaker. Cooper and Miller would show the lie. That would certainly explain why Cooper and Miller had good reasons in addition to jounrnalism privilege to not want to be the ones who might finger Rove for perjury.