Word is that Judge Burns has now gone ahead and signed off on the subpoenas. Wilkes’ court-appointed lawyer, Shereen Charlick, has them in hand and is going to start faxing them out right quick.
Monthly Archive for November, 2007
No subpoenas have been issued yet, but the AP isn’t waiting. The news agency has already filed a motion to supress them.
Realize I’m a bit late in getting this up, but since a lot of folks at the CIA have been perusing my site lately, I thought I would post the Copley News Service and the CIA Article I mentioned in my Peanut Gallery column on the departures of Marcus Stern and Jerry Kammer and the end of Copley News Service.
But as Michael Corleone said: “they keep pulling me…BACK…IN!”
So defense attorney Mark Geragos wants Judge Larry Burns to subpoena me to testify at a December 11th hearing about the sources for my book, Feasting on the Spoils.
Here’s what the subpoena would look like (Click for larger image):
Here’s his explanation for why:
Seth Hettena is a journalist, who authored “Feasting on the Spoils: The Life and Times of Randy Cunningham, History’s Most Corrupt Congressman.” Mr. Hettena called defense counsel and inquired regarding the investigation into Mr. Wilkes and his alleged role in wrongdoing with former Congressman Cunningham. Mr. Hettena claimed to have a draft(s) indictment prior to its issuance and revealed portions of the proposed charges to defense counsel. Mr. Hettena had to have received the draft(s) of or any substance of a proposed indictment(s) from someone on the prosecution team.
I’m putting the Cunningham trial aside for a while. You heard me right, you Cunningham case obsessives, you Duke haters, I’m taking a break. I need to get a life. It’s time to do some incisive D.C. reporting like the LA Times:
A senior Bush administration official, speaking on White House rules of anonymity, said the administration had looked at concrete steps over the last week.
“We had some ideas. The Turks have had some ideas. The Iraqis have had some ideas. The Kurds have had some ideas,” the official said.
(Hat tip, Kevin Drum)
If you’re looking for insight as to what is was like in the courtroom when the jury pronounced Brent Wilkes guilty on all counts, I’m not the one who can give it to you. The Wilkes jury reached its verdict just as Judge Burns was sentencing a major Tijuana drug kingpin, so all the reporters were already in place. I rushed downtown, and I was a disheveled mess when I got there, but it was all over. Then I left too soon and missed the jury forewoman.
So I had a pretty bad day. But Brent Wilkes had a far worse one.
The 53-year-old defense contractor was found guilty on 13 counts of fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, and bribery. The jury found that Wilkes plied Cunningham with more than $700,000 in bribes in exchange for millions of dollars in government contracts.
Wilkes gambled everything on the only hand he had to play, and lost. He figured that if he could tell the jury his side of the story of his relationship with former Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, he could clear everything up. Then everyone would see how badly the prosecution had twisted things. But the prosecution just had too much evidence that contradicted him. Even if the jury wanted to believe the charming and funny defense contractor, they just couldn’t.
What bounces around and around in my head is the fact that Wilkes is no fool. He’s been a poker player since high school and he knew exactly what cards the government was holding — they included Cunningham, the prostitutes, and Wilkes’ own nephew — and he had to have known that the odds weren’t good. Once the government has you in its sights, it just will not quit. Far wealthier and more powerful men have pleaded guilty rather than take their chances before a jury.
So why didn’t Brent Wilkes?
I’ve posted what I think are some interesting exhibits from the trial of Brent Wilkes, but by any standard exhibit 60-01 is extraordinary. This is the photo lineup federal agents presented to an escort in Hawaii for the purposes of identifying her client on the night of August 15, 2003:
During his closing argument to jurors, defense attorney Mark Geragos asked jurors to keep one question in mind. If the government prosecutors believed Brent Wilkes had plied Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham with more than $600,00 in bribes, why didn’t they put the ex-honorable gentleman on the witness stand?
It’s a good question. As the jury enters its third full day of deliberations, they may be wondering the same thing, and it remains to be seen whether keeping Cunningham off the stand will hurt the government’s case.
In his closing argument, Geragos told jurors the government didn’t call Duke because he would never, ever admit that Brent Wilkes’ contracting work was bad for the country. Prosecutor Jason Forge countered that in rebuttal by saying that he didn’t want to call the most corrupt congressman in history and ask jurors to rely on his testimony.
So why didn’t Geragos call Cunningham ? Geragos said the government had the burden of proof. When I reminded him that he had told jurors he would call Duke, Geragos replied that Wilkes was a better witness. It’s not too hard to believe that he was worried that Duke would admit that Wilkes had bribed him. And that would be something no amount of brutal cross-examination could undo. You might as well send the jury out right then.
The statements from both sides leave a bit to be desired; something’s missing here. We’ll find out someday, but for now, it’s clear that both prosecutors and the defense felt there was more harm than good in calling the Duke to testify. Was anybody really sure what he would say? Cunningham has a history of instability and, more importantly, he’s not the smartest fellow, so there’s no telling what someone as smart as Geragos could get Cunningham to concede. Just look at what he did to other, more intelligent witnesses. And sitting next to Geragos at the defense table was a man who knew Duke better than almost anyone.
In the final analysis, it bears noting that for both sides the least reliable witness wasn’t Mitch Wade, the double-crossing greedy cheat who admitted paying Cunningham $2 million in bribes. Nor was it Brent Wilkes, who is awaiting to hear whether jurors thought he was lying on the witness stand and will convict of bribery, money laundering, fraud and conspiracy.
No, the most unreliable witness happened to be one of the most highly decorated pilots of the Vietnam War, an eight-term congressman from San Diego who never lost an election, the former member of the powerful Defense Appropriations subcommittee, Randy “Duke” Cunningham.
Duke shot a 92 at Coeur d’Alene on this day (but still won with a 30 handicap)!
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