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POGO Part II, "Duncan Hunter's Brand of Congressional Oversight." The shorter version: Hunter (R-CA), chairman of the House armed services committee and a member of the defense appropriations subcommittee, co-owns a Virginia property with a top Rumsfeld aide (now undersecretary of the Army) until recently charged with Congressional liaison activities, including, as a source tells Pogo, "keeping Congress off Rumsfeld's back." And Hunter's top corporate campaign donor is a firm implicated in the Abu Ghraib abuses -- abuses Hunter vehemently urged not be investigated by Congress:
Kind of hard to keep the conflict of interest out of such an arrangement, if you're sharing a hunting lodge together? Posted by Laura at June 9, 2006 11:12 AM... Almost exactly a year ago, the Associated Press did a nice roundup of House leadership financial disclosure statements. Among the highlights for Hunter was his co-ownership of a rural Virginia cabin with “former Democratic U.S. Rep. Pete Geren of Texas.” [...]
Preston M. “Pete” Geren III, however, is not your average former Congressman. [...] Between 2001-2005, Geren occupied an office "strategically next door" to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, whom he served as a special assistant responsible for "inter-agency initiatives, legislative affairs, and special projects." [...]
A less-charitable description of [then Rumsfeld "Special Assistant" Pete] Geren’s Abu Ghraib duties, according to a knowledgeable congressional source, was “keeping Congress off Rumsfeld’s back”. Indeed, much to the Pentagon’s consternation, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner's (R-VA) was actually moved to investigate Abu Ghraib and hold multiple hearings on the matter. Not so with Geren's real estate partner, the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Consistently dismissive of interrogation and detention excesses as isolated incidents, Hunter actively discouraged Congressional investigation into Abu Ghraib.
Absent from national press coverage of Hunter's antipathy towards Abu Ghraib investigations, however, was the fact that Hunter's top corporate campaign contributor, San Diego-based defense contractor Titan Corporation, potentially had a lot to lose in the scandal. [...]
(Hunter’s disclosures (pdf) make no mention of Geren’s Defense Department affiliation, and Geren’s disclosures simply refer to the “Hunter/Geren partnership”--to look at them, you’d have no idea that the “Hunter” chaired House Armed Services).