Congressman Cunningham Resigns after Guilty Plea in Bribery Case

Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) resigned his seat yesterday in a tearful farewell to the media after entering a guilty plea in a bribery case. A former navy combat pilot with 5 MiGs to his credit in Vietnam and former instructor at the Navy’s “Top Gun” school, the 8-term congressman now joins such illustrious warriors as Benedict Arnold in betraying the trust of the people for whom he once fought. The longer his jail sentence the more perfect the justice will be.

In an earlier piece on this sad episode, this journal took the government to task for suing Mr. Cunningham in private. It was wrong of the government to do that, and it remains wrong. Nonetheless, that did not deal with the bribery case but the civil pressures placed on the congressman by the feds. Since one may now dispose of the presumption of innocence, one hopes the government moves quickly to seize his ill-gotten assets and make what reparations the the taxpayers are possible.

What Mr. Cunningham did comes under the category of “too clever by half.” He sold his house for $1.6 million to defense contractor Mitchell Wade, who then resold it a bit later for $700,000 less. Not even when a real estate bubble bursts does this happen, and San Diego was booming. Adding stupidity to the sin of greed, Mr. Cunningham then went out and bought a $2.5 million mansion (his congressional salary is $160,000, so perhaps he could manage it), along with a boat on which he lives while in Washington (the budget is stretched now), and somewhere along the line he acquired a Rolls Royce (the budget pin-ball machine now reads “tilt”). One of the early lessons any wiseguy learns is not to spend extravagantly after a big job.

Holding back tears, he told the press, “I broke the law, concealed my conduct and disgraced my office. I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions, most importantly, the trust of my friends and family.” US Attorney Carol Lam said, “The citizens who elected Cunningham assumed that he would do his best for them. Instead, he did the worst thing an elected official can do -- he enriched himself through his position and violated the trust of those who put him there.”

Both are soft-pedaling what he did. As a member of the intelligence committee and the appropriations subcommittee on defense, his votes may have been swayed by the bribes resulting in less-than-the-best winding up in the hands of some American kid in Iraq’s Sunni Triangle. He did more than “violate the trust” of the people; he may actually have gotten a US soldier killed. Profiteering during wartime is not necessarily treason (Chandler v. United States of America, December 3, 1948) but perhaps Ms. Lam should have tested that rule.

© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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