(h/t to Howie Klein at Down With Tyranny!, who has a great “Brent Wilkes tag cloud” you should all have a look at if you want to understand his importance)

We know that US Attorney Carol Lam has been forced out of her post for her insistence to prosecute lawbreakers of a particular political stripe.  One thing you may not know is that her dismissal will not take effect until February 15.  Well, it appears that Lam has planned one hell of a last act:

…the Wall Street Journal says that federal prosecutors are under orders to deliver a grand jury indictment against Wilkes by Feb. 15.

A note of caution: a Wilkes indictment has been rumored for months. But this has a ring of truth to it. Why? Because according to WSJ the order comes directly from just-ousted U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, who’s been overseeing the case — and who gave the order to take Wilkes down before she leaves on — you guessed it — February 15.

Brent Wilkes is the central figure in at least three pending investigations among California’s Republican delegation in Congress, and could easily be the impetus for a fourth.  Wilkes is named in the Duke Cunningham indictment as “Coconspirator #1”.  He provided actual cash, half a million dollars’ worth, for Cunningham to help pay off a mortgage, in exchange for an ungodly amount of Pentagon contracts for his defense contracting company, ACDS.  This is the content of the investigation currently being conducted in San Diego, and this is what would be the substance of the indictment.

However, Wilkes’ tentacles reach far beyond just former Republican Congressmen who are currently in jail. 

Rep. Jerry Lewis (I’m following the mantra of Googlebombing), the former head of the House Appropriations Committee, has a close relationship with a lobbyist named Bill Lowery, having authorized ” hundreds of millions of dollars in federal projects for clients” of his.  One of the people Lowery was in the employ of was Brent Wilkes.  Lewis and Lowery have exchanged staff members on occasion; it can be said that their offices are not materially different in their goals.

Rep. John Doolittle admitted to the Washington Post that he…

helped steer defense funding, totaling $37 million, to a California company, whose officials and lobbyists helped raise at least $85,000 for Doolittle and his leadership political action committee from 2002 to 2005.

That California company was owned by Brent Wilkes.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, longshot candidate for President and former head of the House Armed Services Committee, is also tied up with Wilkes, having received hundreds of thousands in campaign funds from him and his companies in exchange for useless boondoggles of government contracts:

Cunningham and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, worked closely with two local companies – ADCS Inc. of Poway and Audre Inc. of Rancho Bernardo – to make the Pentagon pay for converting printed documents to computer files. They and a few other lawmakers got Congress to allocate $190 million for “automated data conversion” projects from 1993 to 2001.

Did the Pentagon want this “help”? No. As a 1994 General Accounting Office report noted, it already had the tools for such work.

But Cunningham, Hunter and their House allies didn’t care. Audre and ADCS were generous with contributions – and ADCS executive Brent Wilkes allegedly was bribing Cunningham…This led to such absurdities as a $9.7 million contract for ADCS to digitize historical documents from the Panama Canal Zone that the Pentagon considered insignificant. This isn’t governance. This is looting.

Wilkes was also a high school buddy of Dusty Foggo, the ex-#3 at the CIA who resigned last year amid both corruption allegations (he was the lead procurement official) and rumors of hooker parties set up by Wilkes where he would entertain lawmakers, staff, and CIA officials with poker and drinks and… hookers and stuff.

Trapping Wilkes in the vice could be the spark to send all of these California legislators tumbling down.  Carol Lam won’t be on the case should the indictment come down, and it’ll be interesting to see if the replacement decides to interfere with an ongoing investigation.  But clearly she wants to make Brent Wilkes sing before she is forced out of her post.  And the ripple effect could be tremendous.