Washington – Disgraced former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham parlayed his seat on the intelligence committee into at least $70 million in business for two contractors who in turn paid him millions in bribes, an investigator hired by the panel has concluded.
The investigator’s report, released Tuesday by the committee’s top Democrat, found that the California Republican exploited weaknesses in the system for monitoring secret federal spending.
It said that he and at least one associate secured the cooperation – or at least the acquiescence – of many people.
They included members of Congress and their aides who handled bills that directed money to certain programs, Pentagon officials who awarded the contracts and officials at agencies where the contract work was done.
In a sign of partisan divisions on the committee, California Rep. Jane Harman, its top Democrat, unilaterally released the five-page document after months of disagreement with the committee’s chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich.
Now serving a sentence of more than eight years, Cunningham pleaded guilty in November to accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes from alleged co-conspirators.
