Cunningham's Iranians. A long-time lobbyist for ADCS, the defense contracting firm headed by alleged Congressman Duke Cunningham co-conspirator Brent Wilkes, is Richard Bliss. A Washington-based attorney, Bliss could be found in the news in the late 1990s for leading lobbying efforts to relax US trade sanctions against Iran. In particular, simultaneous to his lobbying for ADCS, Bliss has been a lobbyist for a company that in 1999 was lobbying the Clinton administration for permission to sell $500 million worth of grain to Iran.

This while simultaneously pulling in about $40k a year to lobby the Senate and House on behalf of ADCS. Bliss seems to only have been lobbying for about four firms in the period from 1998 until now, including ADCS and Niki, both with ties to San Diego.

In the bitterly divided US Iran policy community, this would seem to put Bliss pretty firmly in the "trade and engage" camp with Iran, although I'm told his position was not motivated by ideology but just business. That position appeared to have the ear at least for a time of some farm state lawmakers, like Nebraska's Chuck Hagel, Pat Roberts (R-KS), Larry Craig (R-ID), and Bob Kerrey (D-NE), as well as Bob Ney, who was apparently sympathetic to efforts to engage with Iran and feels connected to Iran for among other reasons, the fact that he taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in Shiraz in the 1970s and speaks Farsi.

Is Wilkes connected to Bliss' Iran work? Not clear. The San Diego Union Tribune noted the two worked pretty closely in synch. Back in 1998, "as the Appropriations Committee earmarked the budget, Wilkes, his wife Regina, Wilkes' nephew and lobbyist Joel Combs, attorney Richard Bliss and Rollie Kimbrough, a Democrat who headed a Washington, D.C., company that partnered with ADCS on the project, contributed a total of $28,000 to the three Republican lawmakers" -- and got the contract to digitize US military documents in Panama.

Starting a couple years later, we know from Cunningham's plea agreement, we have Wilkes bribing Cunningham to the tune of over half a million dollars, and Cunningham aggressively intervening to help Wilkes's ADCS get defense contracts. All the while, Bliss was one of ADCS's lobbyists.

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So it's interesting to note that there's a prominent Iranian American businessman involved in the network of players who arranged for Cunningham's two trips to Saudi Arabia in 2004. That Iranian-American businessman is close with Washington Iran hawks, is very heavily involved in Republican circles, and is now a leading advocate of getting the US to back efforts to promote the democratic overthrow of the Tehran regime. In the past couple years, his business has shifted from "the businss of business" to more of this Iran democracy work. Sources tell me he would like to become part of the administration in some capacity to advise on Iran policy. (I've interviewed this person. He acknowledges having met Cunningham once but not in Saudi Arabia, although he has worked there; which differs from another account I've heard).

Where am I going with this? Well, the obvious question is, what's the deal? Is Wilkes with Bliss' Iran trade crowd, and Wade with the free Iran crowd? Or are those labels themselves irrelevant, or diversion for something else going on?

The evidence speaks to something else. The available evidence suggests that Wilkes and Wade are extraordinary mercenary opportunists, and if Wade had to set up a non profit to be eligible for Brownback's proposed "free Iran" money [Brownback proposed $50 million be made available to liberate Iran in May 2003, only $3 million of which went through in 2005] that was a small formality. What's more, sources tell me Brownback was originally being urged to make his "free Iran" money doled out not through the State Department, but through a special [Congressionally-designated, I believe] committee. The reason? So the designated terrorist group the MEK could get in on the money as well, something not available to it through State because it's on the State Department's list of designated terrorist groups. [State will be in charge of the $85 million being proposed this year.] Why Wilkes worked with Bliss, as opposed to hundred other attorneys, isn't clear to me.

The part that most intrigues me is the Iranian American in the mix on the sidelines of Cunningham's Middle East adventures. Because separate from Cunningham, that person operates at a very interesting nexus of Republican party operatives, Iranian exile politics, and the big money people (abroad and at home). I'm also told another person who was invited to be on the second Saudi trip with Cunningham (and Cunningham's pal, co-conspirator #3 Thomas Kontogiannis), was Pete Hoekstra, chairman of the House intelligence committee. Hoekstra ultimately decide to decline Cunningham's invitation for the Saudi trip. What's interesting about that is it suggests that whoever wanted Cunningham to come to Saudi Arabia may have had a reason for inviting members from the House Intelligence Committee in particular.

Update: Reader C notes, "Looking at Wilkes contributions I now see he enriched quite a few on the House Foreign Affairs Committee: Dan Burton, Dana Rohrbacher, Darrell Issa, and Katherine Harris. Did this committee ever do any favors for Wilkes?" Former long-time House International Relations committee chair Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) received $28,646 from Wilkes and the ADCS PAC as well. That committee is interesting, because it would be the one to lobby on such issues as permission for sale of sensitive items on State Department-managed export control lists (say, satellite systems) and those involving countries that are the subject of trade sanctions, say, in the Iran case, grain.

(Editor's Note: This post has been revised.)

Posted by Laura at March 13, 2006 08:44 AM