Contracting probe could extend to CIAFederal investigators in San Diego have made it clear that while just-resigned Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pled guilty last week to taking bribes from defense contractors, their public corruption probe will not stop at Cunningham. Numerous current and retired CIA officials say they will not be surprised if the investigation touches the CIA in general, and its third-ranking official in particular.
"Though everyone has been talking about what Cunningham did for contractors from his position on Defense Appropriations , you also have to remember that he had a seat on Intelligence too, which is also a good position to help contractors from, particularly if they want to do business with the CIA," says a veteran CIA officer. "But the real question I think is, if those contractors were doing business with the CIA, did they need Cunningham? And even if they didn't, the question is, even if he didn't do anything, did one the highest-ranking agency officials have any idea what his friends were up to?"
According to past and present CIA officials interviewed over the past month, CIA executive director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo--whose career duties have encompassed letting CIA contracts--has had a long, close personal relationship with two contractors identified (though not explicitly named) in court papers as bribing Cunningham: Brent Wilkes of the Wilkes Corp., whose subsidiaries include defense contractor ADCS; and former ADCS consultant Mitchell Wade, until recently president of defense contractor MZM, Inc. It is a relationship, the CIA officials say (with some putting a particular emphasis on Wilkes), that has increasingly been of concern.
One current and two retired senior CIA officials told Government Executive that (as noted last week by reporter Laura Rozen in The American Prospect's TAPPED blog) the relationship of Wilkes and Foggo--who the CIA's Web site declares is "under cover and cannot be named at this time," even though he is pictured and identified on a federal charity web page--has been a subject of increasing concern by some at Langley.
Another recently-retired senior agency official, while not naming Wilkes or Wade by name, also noted concerns borne out of both personal experience with and reports from colleagues about Foggo. "If you were a case officer and worked with him, you'd be saying to yourself, 'I've got to watch this guy,'" says the former official. "There is one contractor with whom he enjoys a very, very, very close relationship."
According to several of the officers interviewed for this article, Foggo and Wilkes have been friends since at least their college years at San Diego State University in the 1970s, where they were roommates. According to several regulars at Washington's Capital Grille, the two jointly lease one of the restaurant's private wine lockers.
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