Hey Ladies!

The NY Times reports today that the FBI currently has over 2000 ongoing public corruption investigations. Throw US Rep Jerry Lewis on the pile. The FBI has opened an investigation into Lewis' role in the Duke Cunningham bribery case. Lewis goes way back with Cunningham briber Brent Wilkes.

Now, Josh Marshall points us to this passage from the LA Times. From the Times via TPM:

If the official didn't cooperate, Cunningham was to say his next calls would be to two high-ranking Pentagon officials. The script called for Cunningham to add: "This is very important and if you cannot resolve this others will be calling also" — two names in this passage are blacked out in the memo. Despite Cunningham's threats, the Pentagon manager was unmoved, according to grand jury testimony.

A week later, Cunningham and Lewis called a Washington news conference to announce that they had slashed $2 billion in funding for the F-22 Raptor fighter jet, one of the Pentagon's prized programs, citing cost overruns. Both congressmen had been key supporters of the project, and their comments shocked Pentagon officials.

Within days, the same Pentagon manager who had been resistant to Cunningham's appeals sent the congressman a list of other programs where money could be "reallocated" to Wilkes' firm, according to court documents. "The Defense Department spends $1 billion a day, so the [Wilkes] contract was like a rounding error. It just wasn't worth putting our big programs at risk," a senior Pentagon official said on condition he not be identified.

On Friday, Lewis said "there was no connection whatsoever" between his position on the F-22 program and Cunningham's effort to pressure the Pentagon on Wilkes' behalf. "If I knew about it, I would have stopped it," Lewis said.

The Pentagon agreed to send $5 million more to Wilkes' firm, according to court documents. The F-22 funds were later restored. In subsequent years, Cunningham and Lewis supported full funding for the warplane.

Perhaps Lewis didn't know of the Cunningham's pressure on the Pentagon, but I doubt it. Lewis' participation in the "don't fuck with us or we'll slash your budget" move strikes me as more than just doing a favor for a fellow committee member. Lewis switched his position on the F-22 twice that year, and every other year he supported fully funding the project.