Saturday, February 18, 2006

Balls as Big as Church Bells

The bribery and corruption scandal involving Republican Representative Duke Cunningham is moving to the sentencing stage. As Josh Marshall reports, the prosecution is looking to throw the book at Cunningham, aiming for the maximum sentence of ten years in prison.

From the details of the case, it seems the prosecution should get its wish. I'd realized that Cunningham was thoroughly corrupt, but I didn't realize just how brazen he'd been about it. Check out this tidbit from the AP report:
The prosecution's sentencing memorandum included a copy of a “bribe menu” written under the Congressional seal on Cunningham's office stationary. One column of figures represented the millions of dollars in contracts that could be “ordered” from Cunningham, according to prosecutors. The right column showed the amount of bribes Cunningham demanded in return.
Yes, you read that correctly. A "bribe menu" on official congressional stationary. I'll give you a second to pick your jaw up off the floor.

TPM has plenty of other particulars in Cunningham's string of "unparalleled corruption." Read 'em and weep.

3 comments:

Mr Furious said...

Yeah, well investigators also found some take-out menus in Democratic offices, making this a bipartisan scandal...

Otto Man said...

Worse, one of the takeout menus was for a Chinese restaurant. Clearly, the Democrats are taking orders from the PRC.

teh l4m3 said...

See? And if Hillary gets the White House, she'll sell the Lincoln Bedroom for enough yuan to finally pay off Vince Foster's killer, and then we'll never get her!

It's Chinatown, man, Chinatown!!!