posted on: Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Sometimes it is remarkably difficult to keep up with the pace at which dubious Beltway politicians find their ways into tapping charity and philanthropy for nefarious ends. The teary saga of California Congressman Randall “Duke” Cunningham and his relationship with favor-dispensing defense contractors reached its apogee this past week with the Duke’s indictment and subsequent plea bargain and resignation from Congress.

NCRP wrote about the “Duke’s Demise” in our Summer 2005 issue of Responsive Philanthropy, highlighting Cunningham’s relationship with defense contractor MZM Inc., whose president, one Mitchell Wade, worked some real estate transactions for Cunningham putting 6-figure sums in the Congressman’s pocket on top of giving him a 42-foot yacht to live on in D.C. for the de minimus rent of $500 a month.

We of course focused on the philanthropic angle of Cunningham’s friends and associates and the Duke himself. In order to dodge some of the indictments that eventually ensnared him, Cunningham pledged to sell his new home, that had been purchased with MZM’s inappropriate indulgences, and donate the proceeds to three San Diego area charities, one of them known for its Republican political connections and willingness to engage in charitable repair of felonious politicians’ reputations, and another notable for its virulence against lesbian and gays, a concept not unknown to Cunningham who has made crude and insulting remarks about gays on the floor of the House of Representatives.

We also noted the connection of both Cunningham and Wade to something called the Sure Foundation, a faith-based charity ostensibly addressing victims of civil unrest in Third World nations and, based on a government grant, in the neighborhoods of inner-city Washington, D.C.. Capitalized by MZM contributions, Sure counts Wade and his wife as board officers, and Cunningham’s wife and daughter as members of a four-person advisory council.
The indictment and plea bargain outline a long list of bribes Cunningham took in addition to the real estate transactions in San Diego and Arlington, VA (a $200,000 payment to help Cunningham buy a condo there). Included are items such $140,000 for his “Duke-Stir” yacht, $13,500 toward the purchase of a Rolls-Royce and almost $18,000 for its repairs, $7,200 for an antique French commode, $9,200 for two Laser Shot shooting simulators, and the list goes on and on (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-duke30nov30,0,2055710.story?coll=la-home-local). All told, Cunningham has admitted to some $2.4 million in bribes, not a bad haul for the guy who was allegedly the model for Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun.” But the bribes weren’t all from Wade and MZM.

The indictment also captured four additional unnamed co-conspirators, and quickly the public learned that “co-conspirator no. 1” was Brent Wilkes, a San Diego businessman, well known in Republican campaign circles for his fundraising for Republican candidates and political groups. In fact, Wilkes is no small donor, but a “Bush Pioneer,” so designated for having raised more than $100,000 for the President’s 2004 reelection campaign. On their own, Wilkes and his wife Regina donated $139,806 to political candidates and PACs in 2001 and 2004 (http://wwww.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/17/AR2005081702005_pf.html).

Political contributions aren’t the same as bribes, but apparently Wilkes runs a number of firms, including a defense contractor called ADCS, which received more than $80 million in Defense Department contracts for digitizing Pentagon documents. While Wilkes isn’t in jail yet, the business side of his life looks a bit shaky, as his company’s headquarters is up for sale in order to pay back $40,000 in back taxes owned by the landlord, Al Dust Properties LLC, also own by Wilkes (http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/12/01/news/top_storoies/21_53_5011_30_05.txt). This indictment isn’t the first time Cunningham was investigated for pushing Pentagon contracts to ADCS, but he and the company slipped through the Pentagon’s Inspector General’s review in the late 1990s, with the then pugnacious Cunningham telling his critics that they “can go to hell” and declaring, in the ADCS investigation, “I’m on the side of the angels here.” (http://www.dukecunningham.org/bibliography/ut19971215-adcs.html).

Of course there’s a philanthropy angle here. Wilkes also runs the eponymous Wilkes Foundation which has also done favors for the now former, bribe-sullied Congressman. In 2002, for example, the foundation organized a black tie “Tribute to Heroes” gala honoring Cunningham and awarding him a trophy for being a hero. That same year, MZM’s Wade contributed money to the Wilkes Foundation, during which Wilkes honored the congressman.

The Wilkes Foundation has a one-page website consisting of a cover page with the foundation’s mission statement: “The Wilkes Foundation is committed to improving the lives of our children and to the people who have served our country” (www.wilkesfoundation.org). If there was ever more content, it seems to have been pulled down, reminiscent of the rapidly disappearing website of Jack Abramoff’s Capital Athletic Foundation after that investigation started.

Started with $100,000 from ADCS in 2000, the Wilkes Foundation grew to $150,000 in 2001 with a gift from David Stecher, a compensation and benefits consultant who, like Wilkes was big in the local United Way’s deTocqueville Society program for major donors and eventually served as a board member for the Tribute to Heroes program. But the only grant made by the foundation in those years was one $500 contribution to a food program in Washington, D.C.

2002 saw the foundation jump with plans for the Salute to Heroes and contributions from the likes of MZM’s Wade ($29,500), adding $300,000 to the institution’s assets. It spent $35,946 on the Tribute to Heroes even that honored Cunningham—plus another $340,000 that went to the United Way. That grant certainly helped solidify Wilkes’ own standing as a United Way deTocqueville donor.

The Foundation added another $340,000 in gifts and income in 2003, but grants fell to $53,500, the majority going to the Marshall Faulk Foundation in Indianapolis. Expenses included $77,000 for yet another Heroes fundraising event, this one honoring Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter. Apparently, the Foundation went ahead with a 2004 heroes celebration, though at this writing, it is unclear which hero from the Republican Congressional delegation got the trophy.

It all comes full circle. NCRP’s investigations of Jack Abramoff’s philanthropic activities led us to look at the presence of another Congressman who went on a Capital Athletic Foundation golf junket to Scotland that led to a contract for one of Abramoff’s corporate clients that also contributed to his foundation. That Congressman was Ohio’s Bob Ney. It’s touching to see that in 2002, Ney got the House of Representatives to approve a proclamation honoring the Tribute to Heroes event that lauded the now disgraced Cunningham. Based on news reports, the subpoenaed Ney may soon be joining Cunningham in reading the particulars of an indictment.

When some of Cunningham’s dealings with Wade were first revealed in the summer of 2005, Cunningham’s response was a dare: “If I’ve done anything wrong, come and get me” (http://nctimes.com/articles/2005/11/06/news/top_stories/22_37_5011_5_05.prt). At the end of November, Cunningham was meekly and tearfully answering, “Yes, Your Honor,” to charges of accepting bribes (http://www.sandiego.com/localnews_fullstory.jsp?ItemId=story.29493.html). But his unindicted misbehavior, along with Wade’s and Wilkes’s, also includes the misuse and corruption of charity and philanthropy for political and personal benefit. It may seem inconsequential compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars that Cunningham apparently pocketed in direct bribes, but every chip at the edifice of philanthropic accountability reverberates through the halls of Congress and with the American public.