Cunningham Offered to Testify From Jail

19 Oct 2006 // Former Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.) has offered to testify about his activities as a member of the House Intelligence Committee to the panel’s chairman, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), but only if Hoekstra personally travels to the North Carolina federal prison where Cunningham is now serving a sentence for bribery-related charges.

Hoekstra turned down the offer to meet with his former colleague, which was outlined in a recent letter from Cunningham to the Michigan Republican. Hoekstra told Cunningham that he wanted a special counsel appointed by the committee, Michael Stern, to conduct any interview with the imprisoned ex-lawmaker.

Cunningham’s lawyer, Lee Blalack, was unaware of the letter that Cunningham sent to Hoekstra until informed by the committee. Blalack has stated repeatedly that Cunningham will refuse to testify before the committee even if subpoenaed by the panel.

“I didn’t know [Cunningham] was going to send it or had sent it,” Blalack said.

Blalack declined to comment further on the letter, but both he and Justice Department officials do not want Cunningham to provide evidence to Congressional investigators until the criminal probe of the bribery scandal that brought down the former lawmaker is completed, which is likely to be in 2007 at the earliest.

Sources close to the case say Cunningham’s offer to testify may be rescinded soon.

Disclosure of Cunningham’s letter to Hoekstra comes after the Michigan Republican and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, have publicly clashed over Harman’s decision to release a summary of Stern’s investigation, and over the need to subpoena Cunningham.

Harman was aware of Cunningham’s letter to Hoekstra, and in a statement released by her office on Tuesday, she said it was “totally inappropriate for the Chairman to be in contact with Cunningham, which he has been.”

Hoekstra, for his part, claimed Cunningham’s willingness to testify was reason enough to delay the release of Stern’s report, the original, classified version of which was completed in May. In July, Stern finished an unclassified version of his report, but Hoekstra has declined to publicly release that document.

“Cunningham has reached out to the committee and offered his testimony, a possibility the independent counsel is still reviewing,” Hoekstra said in a statement released Tuesday. “Until a final determination has been reached on securing Cunningham’s testimony and [until] the full committee can review the independent counsel’s final report, this inquiry cannot be considered complete.”

Hoekstra added that “consistent with the opinion of the D.C. [B]ar that it is unethical to subpoena a witness before Congress who intends to plead the Fifth, I will not issue a subpoena solely for the theatrics of having Cunningham appear and take the Fifth.”

Stern concluded that Cunningham, who is serving a 100-month prison sentence for bribery, fraud and tax evasion, used his seat on the House Intelligence Committee, as well as his position on the powerful Appropriations subcommittee on Defense, to steer $70 million to $80 million in government contracts to two men alleged to have paid him more than $2.4 million in bribes.

One of those men, Mitchell Wade, former CEO of defense contractor MZM Inc., pleaded guilty in February to bribery and election fraud. Wade has not been sentenced yet.

Brent Wilkes, CEO of ADCS Inc., a California-based defense contractor, has been implicated in the case as well but has not been charged.