The San Diego Union Tribune’s blog is reporting that Duke Cunningham briber Brent Wilkes has been found guilt on all 13 of the charges that were brought against him.
Reporter Greg Morgan has more details in this article.
Wilkes faces at least 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors contended that from 1997 to 2004 he showered Cunningham with gifts small and large. In all, they alleged, he leveraged $625,000 in cash bribes and tens of thousands more in gifts ranging from meals to computers in exchange for Cunningham’s influence in appropriating money and pressuring bureaucrats to award contracts to ADCS Inc., Wilkes’ company.

And I love this assertion:

Wilkes forcefully denied bribing Cunningham. He testified that his interactions with the congressman were legitimate and legal, and his activity was simply “business as usual” in the lobbying and appropriations culture in Washington, D.C.

Really? Were they? Maybe he’d like to spend some time telling prosecutors more about these practices.

“On no occasion did I contemplate he would be vacationing in Greece pending sentencing,” [U.S. District Judge Larry] Burns said.

Thus continues the sands through the hourglass of the Cunningham corruption scandal.  Burns ruled that the case against mortgage broker and co-conspirator Thomas Kontogiannis will continue despite objections from his nephew’s lawyers (nephew John Michael is also on trial for money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice).  Michael’s lawyers claim that Kontogiannis has continued to engage in fraud with full knowledge of prosecutors since his plea in February.

What fraud?  Well, ongoing mortgage fraud from New York apparently.  Mr. Kontogiannis has been a busy boy though as, despite surrendering his passport and agreeing to only leave the country in the company or with the permission of federal agents, he’s been chilling on vacation in Greece.

But w- w- w- w- wait it gets worse.

In court papers filed last month, [Michael lawyer] Granger also revealed that in 2005 Kontogiannis’ daughter had bought the Long Island home that was owned by the uncle of Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Halpern, who is one of the prosecutors in the case against Michael and Wilkes. The uncle died in 2003, and the home was bought from his estate.

Granger had argued this was a conflict and that the entire U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego should be removed from the case, or that Halpern should be banned from it.

Now clearly, Granger is just throwing absolutely everything against the wall and hoping something will stick.  Obviously, Carol Lam has already been removed for actually enforcing the law, and removing what remains of the office seems rather silly.  But it drags things out and muddies the waters.

The next date to watch for is October 2 when the Brent Wilkes trial kicks off.  Prosecutors say that Kontogiannis will “probably not” be called to testify if the case goes well, but he’s presumed to be cooperating with government lawyers.  Many twists and turns still to come on this one, and if Duke Cunningham (R-Tuscon Federal Correction Insitution)’s jailhouse confession is any sort of teaser, we’re in for quite a ride.

A federal appeals panel yesterday heard arguments regarding the power of executive branch federal prosecutors to declare judicial branch court records as classified.  At issue for the three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is the case of Duke Cunningham co-conspirator Thomas Kontogiannis who has pled guilty to laundering bribes heading from defense contractors to Duke Cunningham (R-Tucson Federal Correctional Institution). So what are federal prosecutors after?

In trying to keep the information about the plea secret, government lawyers invoked a law dealing with the handling of classified information. At least one transcript of a hearing was stamped “classified” by the government – a move that was criticized by U.S. District Judge Larry Burns, who is presiding over the case and initially agreed to the secret proceedings.

Burns moved to lift the seal in June. Prosecutors, however, objected and took the case to the appellate court. Their reasons for secrecy are unknown because the objections were filed under seal.

So let’s connect the dots.

The federal attorney’s want to keep court records under wraps.  They’ve gone so far as to request the court to seal the legal filings of the San Diego Union-Tribune seeking access to information.  What are they really asking?  They’re asking that the public trust them because the government just can’t allow things into the public domain.  This is San Diego.  Where, if you’re on public assistance, you’re presumed guilty until proven innocent.  Where the US Attorney was fired by her politically motivated superiors for pursuing federal corruption in this very case.  This is the Justice Department run by Alberto Gonzales who is either mind-blowingly incompetent or has completely politicized the Justice Department to the point that every federal prosecution has to be presumed to have partisan motivations.

Further, in the immediate wake of the FISA vote, federal prosecutors are saying that the executive branch should be unconditionally trusted to safeguard the public interest.  Warrants, checks and balances, and the right of the public to know what the government is doing- according to these federal prosecutors- should just be wholesale ceded to the executive branch of the government.  Yeah right.

What do they have to hide?  Duke Cunningham’s laundry list of bribes received has been fully documented.  So just like the FISA assertation that the government can’t fill out warrant applications, one is forced to ask- in a case full of prominent Republicans, the pursuit of which has already claimed Carol Lam- just what does the fully-partisan Justice Department have to hide?  There’s no longer any question as to the internal policy of the Justice Department and AG Alberto Gonzales, so what’s left is whether the 9th Circuit will roll over on the Constitution and let the executive branch dictate the fundamental operation of the judicial branch.  More simply: Will the judicial branch defend itself from attack?  Will it demand independence?  We’ll see.

Today’s roundup is on the flip. I’m busy today, and there’s not all that many entries, so you’re getting them in no particular order and without headings.

As always, use the comments to let me know what I missed.

• SFist: Bring Out Your Trash, Alameda
  http://sfist.com/2007/07/17/bring_out_your.php
• The Liberal OC » In God They Trust
  http://www.theliberaloc.com/2007/07/17/in-god-they-trust/
• Cannonfire: More on Duke Cunningham
  http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2007/07/cunningham-again.html
• The People’s Vanguard of Davis: Hard Work Behind the Scenes
  by Heystek and Provenza Helped Save the Pass-Through Agreement
  http://davisvanguard.blogspot.com/2007/07/hard-work-behind-scenes-by-heystek-and.html
• Politics in the Zeros » Homebuilder CEO says
  subprime regulation needed
  http://polizeros.com/2007/07/18/homebuilder-ceo-says-subprime-regulation-needed/
• California Progress Report: Schwarzenegger Nominee to Head
  California Air Board Pledges to Faithfully Implement AB 32,
  California’s Global Warming Law
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/schwarzenegger_49.html
• Working Californians: GOP: How About We Cut School
  Funding 
  http://workingcalifornians.com/blog/julia_rosen/2007/07/18/gop_how_about_we_cut_school_funding
• The Liberal OC » The Republican War on Education
  http://www.theliberaloc.com/2007/07/18/the-republican-war-on-education/
• The California Majority Report // Right-Wing Anti-Term
  Limits Reformers Get Caught in Their Own Spin
  http://www.camajorityreport.com/index.php?module=articles&func=display&ptid=9&aid=2078
• California Progress Report: No Vote on the California State
  Budget, But Some Interesting Developments
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/07/no_vote_on_the.html

Copley News Service has gotten hold of Duke Cunningham’s (R-Tucson Federal Correctional Institution) jailhouse FBI interview (pdf) and let’s just say that Brent Wilkes is gonna have a rough go of things as a result of this:

“Cunningham said that there was never a sale,” said the FBI report. “Cunningham stated that he and Wilkes created the cover story of a boat sale to explain, if anyone ever found out and asked, his receipt of $100,000 from Wilkes.” Cunningham told investigators that Wilkes fully understood that there would be “no actual change in ownership” of the yacht. The two men agreed to divide the $100,000 into two checks because both “felt that the smaller checks might be less noticeable.”

The documents show that Cunningham had first asked Wilkes for $550,000.

“Wilkes said no to the $550,000 but then countered with an offer of $100,000 if Cunningham would ensure that the support and earmarks would continue to happen. Cunningham promised Wilkes that he would ‘fight like hell’ for Wilkes/ADCS.”

But it doesn’t end there.  The 11-page report details how Duke Cunningham put himself up for sale and loved the swanky lifestyle it afforded him.  His interview sheds more light on the illicit affairs of several of Duke’s other partners in crime, including Mitchell Wade of MZM (guilty plea, awaiting sentence) and launderer Thomas Kontogiannis (guilty plea recently released), neither of whom was gonna get off, but both of which will probably find the water a bit warmer as a result of Duke’s interview.  It’s almost enough to make you wish that San Diego had a tenacious US Attorney commited to rooting out corruption in government huh?  Small solace that it may be, it looks like the rocks tipped over by Carol Lam are still rolling downhill.

Copley’s done a great job of culling through the FBI report and the related Hattier affadavit (big pdf) to pull out the high points in a list at the end of this article, and I recommend you go through the whole list.  But I couldn’t resist pulling out a few of my favorites (all quoted):

– The Rolls Royce that drew so much attention early in the investigation was not the only car that Cunningham made the contractors buy for him. In only two days in early 2002, the congressman bought a $43,000 Thunderbird and a $41,000 BMW from Bob Baker Ford in San Diego with $63,000 of his payment coming from bribes. That was three months before Wade gave him $10,000 toward the used Rolls Royce.

– In mid-2004 when Cunningham needed to make repairs to his boat, he called Wade and demanded $6,500 cash. Wade took the money out of his petty cash, stuffed the cash into a bulging envelope and rushed it over to a Cunningham fundraiser at a Washington restaurant, giving it to a Cunningham staffer.

– Made Wilkes buy Cunningham’s daughter a computer when she went to college and then pay for its later repair.

– Made either Wilkes or Wade pay his way to the 2003 Super Bowl, Jimmy Buffet concerts in Chula Vista, and several Washington Wizards and Redskins games.

And in case anyone’s curious, FCI Tucson is hiring.

Update: a funny tidbit from an interview with the authors (h/t TPM)–Duke thinks he’s going to be pardoned:

Just when you thought you couldn’t be any more disgusted by Duke Cunningham, the two reporters who brought him down write a book that brings you this:

…even Wilkes drew a line on what he would do for the congressman. For one thing, Wilkes was totally disgusted by the hot tub Cunningham put on the boat’s deck during the autumn and winter. What repelled Wilkes — and others invited to the parties — was both the water Cunningham put in the hot tub and the congressman’s penchant for using it while naked, even if everybody else at the party was clothed. Cunningham used water siphoned directly from the polluted Potomac River and never changed it out during the season. “Wilkes thought it was unbelievably dirty and joked if you got in there it would leave a dark water line on your chest,” said one person familiar with the parties. “The water was so gross that very few people were willing to get into the hot tub other than Duke and his paramour.” That was a reference to Cunningham’s most frequently seen girlfriend, a flight attendant who lived in Maryland.

Previous quote continued:

One of these parties started at the Capital Grille with Cunningham ordering his usual filet mignon — very well done — with iceberg lettuce salad and White Oak. Wilkes used the dinner to update Cunningham on the appropriations he wanted. Cunningham then took the whole group back to the boat where they drank more wine, sitting on white leather sofas while Cunningham told more war stories. Cunningham then took his clothes off and invited all to join him in the polluted hot tub that was hidden from the neighbors by a white tarp. There were no takers.

H/T to TPMMuckraker via dkos.

Two slight digressions: (1) very-well-done is a desecration of filet mignon, (2) the first and only review of it on Amazon is incredibly annoying in that it tries to make this a problem “that pervades both sides of the aisle (Republican and Democrat).” Yes, the Dukestir, you know he was practically a Democrat…or something. Somebody already rated it not helpful (pile on if you have an account), let’s hope we get some better ones up to replace it.

The publisher’s summary:

Duke Cunningham was an All-American success story. The Midwestern boy who went off to war, became a hero, and rode his fame into Congress even bragged that Tom Cruise played him in a popular movie. But the fall of this “Top Gun” was almost as epic and just as cinematic. Today he sits in prison, branded as the most corrupt member of Congress in U.S. history.

Hmm, except I’d actually like to get in a hot tub with Tom Cruise (“Top Gun”-era/pre-crazy Tom that is).

As I mentioned, the book is by the two San Diego Union-Tribune (Copley News) reporters who broke many of the Dukestir stories and brought about his downfall:

The authors were on the team that won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. Jerry Kammer has been a correspondent for Copley News Service since 2002. Marcus Stern has been in Copley’s Washington Bureau for twenty-two years. Dean Calbreath has been a reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune for more than eight years. George E. Condon Jr. has been Washington bureau chief for Copley since 1984. Stern, Calbreath, and Kammer all received the George Polk award. Stern and Kammer also share the Edgar Poe award.

While I can’t praise them enough for that, I wish they’d get busy on any number of other San Diego area Republicans. Heaven knows there is no shortage of material for them to work with around here. I’m actually quite disappointed that they haven’t kept this going. Let’s hope that now they’ve finished this book they can get back to work (of course then there’s the book tour…sigh…)