Dick Cheney and the mysterious $140,000 contract by John Aravosis (DC) · 3/27/2007 08:13:00 PM ET
TPM has more information on Dick Cheney's odd ties to the corrupt GOP lobbyist who bought off Randy "Duke" Cunningham. How did this guy, out of nowhere, get the contract to screen the president's mail, presumably for Anthrax? The guy was a nobody. Had never had a federal contract before. His company showed no revenue, ever. Yet somehow the guy is hired by Dick Cheney's office to oversee the Anthrax mail threat at the White House, and then the guy gets hundreds of millions of dollars of DOD contracts, and bribes a sitting GOP congressman. All because Dick Cheney for some reason let this incredibly corrupt stranger in the very secure White House door shortly after September 11.
As Josh Marshall notes:
It all comes back to the same question. Why did a company like Wade's, which had no track record whatsoever and had only been approved to receive federal government contracts two months earlier, get a contract from the White House to screen the mail of the President of the United States? Was Wade actually working in concert with or as the cut out for accused fellow Cunningham briber Brent Wilkes? And what role might Doolittle and Ney have played? And what about Wade's claims of having pull with the Vice President? Is that what got him the deal?
Read Josh's update - there's more to this story that the White House isn't telling us.