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One Reporter's Opinion: Bills in the Name of National Security George Putnam It is this reporter's opinion that we have not heard the last of former Representative Randy (Duke) Cunningham and how he took advantage of secrecy and badgered congressional aides to insert items into classified bills to benefit him and his associates.
It has just been revealed that the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Republican from Michigan, and a top House Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman of California, have hired a special investigator to look into Cunningham's scheming in the way top secret legislation is written. Cunningham's case puts a stark spotlight on classified ("black") budgets – Intelligence bills and parts of Defense bills written in private in the name of national security.
We know that federal prosecutors found that Cunningham accepted $2.4 million in bribes, payments for a mansion, a Rolls-Royce, and a 65-foot yacht in return for steering Defense and Intelligence contracts to certain companies. Cunningham pleaded guilty and was sentenced to more than eight years in prison.
But now the special investigator, a fellow named Michael Stern, reveals that Cunningham's efforts to steer business to friends and associates were far worse in the spending bills written by the House Appropriations Committee.
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The Intelligence panel that outlines the blueprint for spending by the government's spy agencies was not immune to Cunningham's misdeeds. Stern is going to interview Cunningham in prison to find out more about how he influenced the system.
Hoekstra and Harman want to know how much Cunningham relied on legislation and how much he bullied people at the Pentagon to direct money to certain contractors. Hoekstra says, "We clearly see he tried to use the committee to do bad things." He continues, "Cunningham bastardized the process the whole way through."
Efforts to direct money to specific projects or interests, called "earmarking," are common. But the process is extremely vulnerable to abuse because of its classified nature.
Mr. Cunningham, our House Intelligence Committee wants to know, aside from your unconscionable greed, how many Intelligence and Defense bills did you write in private? And how much have you jeopardized our national security?
It is recalled that in the early 1990s, Senator Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., used classified legislation to move one-third of the CIA from a Washington suburb to his own home state.
In 1999, then-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., used his panel's legislation to direct significant chunks of the agency's budget to projects in a science-intensive spying discipline. Because the money was in a classified portion of the Intelligence bill, the public never knew, nor did Shelby ever respond when requested to comment.
These Intelligence and Defense bills are written in private in the name of "national security." Little does the public know about who is spending what. But now, at last, the House Intelligence Committee is taking a look! It's about time they accounted for such spending.
Mr. Stern, now it's your turn.
Editor's note:
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