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More Cunningham Case Allegations: Poker Parties, Prostitutes -- and Planes. The San Diego Union-Tribune on the poker parties sponsored by Wilkes and Wade:
And further down, meet "Nine Fingers":...A source close to the [Cunningham] bribery case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, told the Union-Tribune that Mitchell Wade, who pleaded guilty in February to bribing Cunningham, told federal prosecutors that he periodically helped arrange for a prostitute for the then-congressman.
A limousine would pick up Cunningham and a prostitute and take them to the ADCS hospitality suite, Wade reportedly told investigators. Federal agents are investigating whether other legislators had similar arrangements with Wilkes or Wade, a business associate of Wilkes who ran his own defense contracting company, MZM Inc. [...]
Two of Wilkes' former business associates say they were present on several occasions when Shirlington Limousine & Transportation Service of northern Virginia brought prostitutes to the suite. They say they did not see lawmakers in the suites on those occasions, though both had heard rumors of congressmen bringing women to the rooms.
Shirlington's attorney, Bobby S. Stafford, confirmed in a letter that from the company's founding in 1990 through the early 2000s, Shirlington President Christopher Baker “provided limousine services for Mr. Wilkes for whatever entertainment he had in the Watergate.”
Stafford's letter stated that Baker was “never in attendance in any party where any women were being used for prostitution purposes.”
Last year, Shirlington won a $21 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security.
According to the Journal, FBI agents have interviewed women employed at escort services in Washington, as well as other potential witnesses. ...
I can imagine that Mr. Gimigliano, who has been hearing about these allegations for months, has invested in an industrial size bottle of Advil by now. What a source mentioned to me was that among spooks, Wilkes and Wade were known as "lobbyists," who sponsored poker parties at hotel suites involving their buddies and congressmen sometimes entertained by prostitutes. The point: to cultivate and bond with those who could throw business their way. I'm told these poker parties may have indirectly helped put Dusty Foggo on Porter Goss's radar, when the CIA was looking to fill the executive director spot, and Goss's first choice became problematic. According to various sources, Foggo was apparently on the outs with his predecessor Buzzy Krongaard, and would spend time away from the office playing poker with the Wilkes-linked group. Writes one source, "...Wilkes and Foggo played cards together in washington in the late 1990s and early 2000s when Foggo was rumored to be on the outs with then executive director Buzzy Krongaard. It is apparently through this connection that Foggo came to the attention of Goss when Goss' first choice for executive director, Michael Kostiw, was nixed..."Several of Wilkes' former employees and business associates say he used the hospitality suites over the past 15 years to curry favor with lawmakers as well as officials with the CIA, where both Wilkes and Wade sought contracts.
Wilkes hosted parties for lawmakers and periodic poker games that included CIA officials as well as members of the House Appropriations and Intelligence committees. Cunningham, who sat on both committees, was a frequent guest, according to some of the participants in the poker games.
People who were present at the games said one of the regular players was Kyle Dustin “Dusty” Foggo, who has been Wilkes' best friend since the two attended junior high school in Chula Vista in the late 1960s. In October, Foggo was named the CIA's executive director – the agency's third-highest position.
Another player was a CIA agent known as “Nine Fingers,” so named because he lost one of his digits while on assignment.
“I remember big spreads of food and alcohol, but mostly cigars,” said former Rep. Charlie Wilson of Texas, who attended a couple of the poker parties during the 1990s.
Wilson said nearly all the poker players at the two games he attended were CIA officials, including Foggo and Nine Fingers. He said there were no women or other lawmakers present, but added that he had to leave the games early “because the cigar smoke was too thick, and I don't deal well with that.”
Foggo, who occasionally hosted the poker parties at his house in northern Virginia, is under investigation by the CIA's inspector general to determine whether he helped Wilkes gain CIA contracts.
CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said such an investigation is routine when questions are raised about an official's actions at the agency...
So was the Wilkes-Foggo relationship purely social? A person in the lobbying business told me the other day that on a visit to Wilkes's offices while in San Diego, Wilkes pointed to a room in his ADCS Poway headquarters as "Dusty's playpen" full of the technological gizmos he apparently loves. And according to another source, Wilkes was in discussions to get a very large contract from the Agency, beyond the $2 to $3 million contract a company he controlled through his nephew had already received from the Agency: as I have previously reported, the contract under discussion was to set up an off-the-books plane network. "There were several more opportunities on the board when the federal investigation came down on Wilkes," a source indicates. "Opportunities worth much more than the $5M or $10 million/year deals Wilkes was used to. The FBI probably knows about these from the raids they conducted, but I wonder if they have shared that information with the CIA." The alleged amount of the contract under negotiation? Close to $300 million, I've heard.