I have to confess a certain respect for Randy ‘the Dukester’ Cunningham’s chutzpah. I mean, he is a very bad man and he fully deserved the frog-marching he received. But the brashness with which he pursued dirty money has a certain flair to it.
Prosecutors call it a corruption case with no parallel in the long history of the U.S. Congress. And it keeps getting worse. Convicted Rep. Randall “Duke” Cunningham actually priced the illegal services he provided.
Prices came in the form of a “bribe menu” that detailed how much it would cost contractors to essentially order multimillion-dollar government contracts, according to documents submitted by federal prosecutors for Cunningham’s sentencing hearing this Friday.
“The length, breadth and depth of Cunningham’s crimes,” the sentencing memorandum states, “are unprecedented for a sitting member of Congress.”
…The sentencing memorandum includes the California Republican’s “bribery menu” on one of his congressional note cards, “starkly framed” under the seal of the United States Congress.
The card shows an escalating scale for bribes, starting at $140,000 and a luxury yacht for a $16 million Defense Department contract. Each additional $1 million in contract value required a $50,000 bribe.
The rate dropped to $25,000 per additional million once the contract went above $20 million.
At one point Cunningham was living on a yacht named after him, “The Dukester,” docked near Capitol Hill, courtesy of a defense company president.
I wonder how many other Congresspeople learned this game at Cunningham’s knee? People like Katherine Harris, perhaps?
