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corruption files
 
Congressman Ken Calvert (CA-44)

Brent Wilkes, one of the CIA/Defense contractors that bribed former congressman Duke Cunningham, focused his influence-buying efforts in Congress on those members who were in the best position to steer him contracts, predominantly those members who sat on the Armed Services committees, Appropriations committees, or Intelligence Service committees in the House or Senate. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, California Congressman Ken Calvert was the sort of congressman that Brent Wilkes' dreams were made of.

Calvert's connections to various players and components of the Duke Cunningham scandal suggests that Wilkes' connections to Calvert may have gone beyond wishful thinking. The congressman has some explaining to do to his constituents.

Campaign Contributions

Wilkes and his associates gave $10,500 in campaign contributions to Calvert's candidate committee and his Eureka PAC from 1995-2002. The first contributions came in 1998, when Wilkes was firming up support for his document conversion contract from the Department of Defense. The second set came in October 2002, the week after the House passed a budget with the first of three earmarks to Wilkes' company PerfectWave Technologies.

DONOR
RECIPIENT
$$
DATE
BLISS, RICHARD W. Calvert for Congress 1000 6/8/1998
COMBS, JOEL Calvert for Congress 1000 6/8/1998
KIMBROUGH, ROLLIE Calvert for Congress 1000 6/8/1998
WILKES, BRENT R Calvert for Congress 1000 6/8/1998
WILKES, BRENT R Calvert for Congress 1000 6/8/1998
COMBS, JOEL Calvert for Congress 1000 6/25/1998
MAGRUDER, EDITH Calvert for Congress 1000 10/15/2002
WILKIES, BRENT Calvert for Congress 1000 10/15/2002
WILKIES, MARILYN Calvert for Congress 1000 10/15/2002
ADCS PAC Eureka PAC 1500 10/1/2003

Source: Federal Elections Commission

Saudi Arabia Trip

Calvert accompanied Cunningham on a fact-finding trip to Saudi Arabia in December 2004. Along the way, they stopped in Greece to pick up Thomas Kontogiannis, one of four men Duke Cunningham pleaded guilty to being bribed by. Calvert says that Kontogiannis accompanied he and Cunningham to some of their meetings with Saudi ministers, but did not particpate in any high-level security meetings.

Kontogiannis runs a number of financial services corporation, including the mortgage company that Cunningham and defense contractor Mitch Wade used to transact the sweetheart real estate deal which put an extra $700,000 in Cunningham's pocket. Kontogiannis offered his own sweetheart deal to Cunningham, buying Cunningham's $200,000 boat in 2002 for $627,000. Calvert has said that if he knew of the Kontogiannis' background, he "would have felt uncomfortable".

The trip was paid for by San Diego businessman Ziyad Abduljawad, a Saudi-American who has urged better U.S.-Saudi relations in the past, who also acocmpanied Calvert, Cunningham, and Kontogiannis on the trip. Abduljawad made his only campaign contribution to Calvert on December 13, 2005, two weeks after Cunningham pleaded guilty to corruption charges and resigned from Congress.

Prostitutes - 1993 Police Report

Federal investigators are now looking into whether Wilkes used prostitutes as a way to develop influence and access with members of congress and the intelligence community. At poker parties held in swank hotel suites around Washington D.C. and possibly elsewhere, Wilkes hosted members of Congress and people in the intelligence services. According to Wilkes' admitted co-conspirator Mitch Wade, Wilkes frequently provided call girls at such occasion.

One of the frequent attendees at these parties was Wilkes' childhood friend Dusty Foggo, who resigned on May 8, 2006 as Executive Director of the CIA (the #3 position at the agency), only days after CIA head Porter Goss announced his resignation. Foggo, a longtime CIA procurement officer, managed what by most accounts was a meteoric rise through the ranks of the CIA. When Foggo was working with the Contras in Central America in the 1980's, Wilkes ferried members of Congress down to see their work.

Foggo is currently under investigation by both the CIA and FBI for steering contracts to Wilkes. For example, Archer Logistics, one of the many companies owned or controlled by Wilkes, received a $2-3 million contract to provide water and other services to Agency personnel in Iraq.

Sources filtering in through our Whistleblower Tip Line have been suggesting that Wilkes and Wade and possibly Foggo may have used prostitution as a way to advance their cause. In the case of Wilkes and Wade, that was federal contracts. In the case of Foggo, it could very well have been career advancement. The use of prostitutes was not confined to Beltway hotels, these sources suggest, but may have occurred elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad.

Our Whistleblower TipLine also recently brought us this police report, which largely speaks for itself. In broad strokes, the details are thus:

Near midnight on November 27, 1993, a police office in Corona, CA saw a parked car on Howard Street near 10th in Corona. The driver appeared slumped in the seat, possibly asleep. The police officer shone his spotlight on the car and walked toward it to investigate. As he drew near, a woman's head snapped up from the driver's lap. When the officer reached the driver window, the woman's cut-off shorts were unzipped and undone. the driver was tucking himself back into his pants and hiding himself under his hand on untucked shirt. The driver was Kenneth Stanton Calvert, then the congressman for the 43rd Congressional District of California, currently congressman for the 44th CD.

When asked what the two were doing, Calvert, who was still covering himself with his shirt and hand, said: "We're just talking, nothing else." He did not know the woman, who had prior arrests for drug use and prostitution.

No charges were filed.

Links

May 10 Blog: "We're Just Talking" - CA Congressman Has Some More Talking to Do