Posted on 01/24/2006 8:48:37 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SAN DIEGO - The Texas prosecutor targeting Rep. Tom DeLay has issued a second round of subpoenas to businessmen here seeking records surrounding donations to the former Republican leader and disgraced former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.
The subpoenas issued by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle's office zero in on transactions in 2002 involving PerfectWave Technologies LLC, a company controlled by Brent Wilkes, a businessman with ties to DeLay and Cunningham.
Wilkes' attorney has identified him as an unidentified co-conspirator of Cunningham, a California Republican who resigned from Congress after pleading guilty in November to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors.
DeLay, charged with conspiring to launder campaign money that was given in 2002 for legislative races in his home state of Texas, flew three times on a jet owned by another Wilkes company, according to campaign records.
According to the subpoenas, businessman William B. Adams wrote a $40,000 check to PerfectWave on Sept. 18, 2002. Two days later, PerfectWave sent $15,000 to TRMPAC, the state committee whose spending is at issue in DeLay's criminal case. On Oct. 3, PerfectWave gave $25,000 to "Tribute to Heroes," Cunningham's annual black-tie charity gala in San Diego.
Wilkes' charitable foundation spent nearly $36,000 hosting "Tribute to Heroes" in 2002. Cunningham, a former Vietnam war fighter ace, was feted with a trophy at the event, according to the event's Web site and tax filings.
Subpoenas were issued last week to Adams and Max Gelwix, PerfectWave's president and CEO. The subpoenas sought records of any communications between DeLay, Cunningham, House Majority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri and Wilkes over federal legislation that may have benefited Adams and his businesses.
Matt Hennessy, an attorney for DeLay, said the latest subpoenas were not worth the paper they were printed on. Cunningham's lawyer, Lee Blalack, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Adams, a golf course developer who lives in suburban San Diego, gave $5,000 in 2002 both to Delay's Americans for a Republican Majority PAC and Blunt's Rely on Your Beliefs fund, according to campaign finance records.
Earle's office, which did not return a message left seeking comment, also issued subpoenas regarding a $10,000 contribution received by a San Diego YMCA that may have come from an Idaho mining company.
According to the subpoenas, Atlas Mining Co. of Osburn, Idaho, wired $10,000 to PerfectWave on Oct. 24, 2002 — the same day PerfectWave cut a $10,000 check to the Copley Family YMCA, named for the family that publishes The San Diego Union-Tribune and other newspapers. Wilkes, whose foundation gave an additional $15,000 to the Copley YMCA in 2002, was named its man of the year.
But Ron Short, Atlas Mining's operations manager, said Tuesday that he could find no record that money was wired to PerfectWave and added that he had never heard of PerfectWave or Wilkes.
"We didn't have $10,000 to give away three years ago," Short said.
Also named in the subpoenas was San Diego attorney Paul E. Smithers, who co-signed checks from PerfectWave to TRMPAC and Tribute to Heroes. Smithers did not return a message seeking comment.
Pretty soon....Ronnie Earle is gonna tie Delay into Kennedy's assasination....
This is bigger then you think. I have a friend in Texas that has seen Tom Delay give money to his church. More then once, lot`sa times! There may even be pictures.
Then there is this. Cunningham visited Houston and ate BBQ.Tom LIVES in HOUSTON and loves BBQ.
HANG EM
Why... That good ol boy's got too much time on his hands, I reckon!!!
Don't you get the feelin' he's rolling out more rope for himself?
Speaking of probes, I think aliens have probed Earle.
Well, I don't see my old friend DeLay makin much of a hangman's noose out of it, yet!!! It's getting disgusting!!!
bttt
Ronnie Earle is either once again overplaying his hand...
OR..that wire that Cunningham wore might have picked up something that Earle thinks he can exploit against Delay.
"tie Delay into the Kennedy assasination..."
There is apparantly a picture showing, in the background of the grassy knoll, a bicycle of the same make (they think) as the bike Delay used to deliver newspapers according to Beulah Whiffenpoof, 106, who thinks a boy named Delay delivered her paper; or maybe it was another boy who was always delayed getting her paper to the house, she's not real sure. Still the bicycle connection is considered vital since Delay was 13 at the time.
LOL
ROFL!!
I agree with you. I am sick and tired of politicians of both parties selling themselves to the highest bidder and if Republicans, I want them in jail. I am tired of corrupt politicians at all level. When I cast my vote, I expect honesty and integrity from them in office. I don't vote to send people to D.C. to get rich -- they are sent there to do the people's business not their own.
I agree with Chairman Mehlman that we need to clean out our house of any corrupt Republicans -- I want to see them in jail if it is proven they were on the take or sold their influence for dollars. I am tired of lobbyiest and weak politicians that kneal down before them.
Don't like or trust Earle but I have this terrible feeling there is more to come.
Not trusting Earle is a good start. If Delay has problems over Abramoff, so be it. On Earle's case, he had a better case on merits against Sen. Hutchison, and he bailed on that as soon as it actually got to court. Earle is a nuisance, using our own party rules to his best effect. Interesting that dk/coro mentions Rosty, it points this out.
The "Culture of Corruption" Dems do NOT have this rule. Rosty didn't give up squat until he was led off in cuffs, and I thought he going to ask a court for a voting machine in his cell! Back then, regarding Rosty, the Dems were all singing "innocent until proven guilty."
I remember Earle and Kay Bailey which is why I wouldn't trust him to tell the truth if I was looking at him in the eye. That said, I am not sure Abramhoff isn't going to bite DeLay as well as some others.
Like to think Republicans will police their own unlike the corrupt RATs!
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