Are these the Conservative Values they Speak of?
 

Cunningham pleads guilty to conspiring to take bribes, income tax evasion

By Gregory Alan Gross, Debbi Farr Baker and Karen Kucher
UNION-TRIBUNE BREAKING NEWS TEAM

9:56 a.m. November 28, 2005

SAN DIEGO – Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleaded guilty Monday morning to conspiring to take bribes in exchange for using his influence to help a defense contractor get business.
He also pleaded guilty to one count of income tax evasion.

U.S. District Larry A. Burns scheduled Cunninghman's sentencing for Feb. 27.

Cunningham, an eight-term Republican congressman, had been under scrutiny for months for his ties to defense contractors and their officials.

Federal officials launched investigations after The San Diego Union-Tribune and Copley News Service reported in June that a defense contractor who won tens of millions of dollars in Pentagon contracts had taken a $700,000 loss after purchasing Cunningham's Del Mar house.

Cunningham sold the house for $1.675 million in November 2003, but the buyer, defense contractor Mitchell Wade, never moved in and almost immediately put it back on the market. Wade sold it 261 days later for $975,000.

Prosecutors contend the overpayment was a bribe.

The congressman, who sits on the House defense appropriations subcommittee, used the proceeds of the sale to buy a $2.55 million house in Rancho Santa Fe, which he has since put up for sale.

Cunningham, a former Navy Top Gun pilot, was first elected to Congress in 1990. The 63-year-old Republican represents a district that stretches from northern San Diego to Escondido and San Marcos and then along the coast from Carlsbad to Del Mar. He has vowed not to seek reelection and plans to retire next year, at the end of his term.


http://www.sandiegotribune.com/news/politics/cunningham/20051128-0956-bn28duke3.html

Maybe he sold when the market was super hot and the liberials pushed RE prices down to entrap him :) Yes, thats the ticket. It was a left wing conspiracy and i am the Queen of England.

No, it's not.

Cunningham was chairman of the House Intelligence subcommittee on Terrorism and Human Intelligence and had substantial links to the defence industry. Suspicions that he used his position as an elected official illegally to influence Pentagon contracts surfaced last June.

We gotta get that guy Stevens out of Transportation next. Or, on second thought, leave him there. He's one of the best arguments the Dems have against one-party rule.

and it isn't liberal values either.

We can agree. The guy is a POS and should be gotten rid of.

On another note, Cunningham was a hell of an F4 pilot over Vietnam. First winner of the Top Gun trophy too, if Im not mistaken

Maybe another damn good argument for term limits. No matter which side of the aisle he is on, he deserves the harshest punishment the law allows. He has betrayed the public's trust. We all know he'll walk after some purely symbolic slap on the wrist, and slide into some consulting job where he can use the connections he made as a sleazy congressman. We, the People, might be well served to put aside our sheep-like partisian bickering and realize all these folks, Republican or Democrat, have been feeding at our trough for too long for our own good. They represent no more than two sides of the same tarnished coin. It's time for some real opposition to ALL of them.

Unfortunately the max is 10 years.

Meanwhile you could sell illegal copies of Madagascar and have your life ruined by the MPAA.

I concur Jeff. I rarely get into political discussions/bickering on this board, since I group them all as "neoliberal republicrats" (whatever that means :) ) and find it all pretty disgusting. Your last two sentences summarize my take on politics since I've been an adult. I really don't have any hope that it's gonna change....