Wilkes and the CIA -- again

Well, Randy "Duke" Cunningham has been sentenced to eight years. But the scandal does not end with his sad march into the Big House.

As I've argued in the past, the real scandal here isn't the money that went to Cunningham (or Duncan Hunter, or Katherine Harris) -- it's the fact that Brent Wilkes set up fake or semi-fake companies for the express purpose of channeling taxpayer funds into partisan politics.

Of course, the CIA has a long history of using front companies. And -- surprise, surprise! -- Brent Wilkes has odd links to the Agency.

ABC News reports that Wilkes' long time bud, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo -- the number three man at CIA -- will come under the scrutiny of the CIA's Inspector General. Although ABC calls the IG "aggressive" and independent, these adjectives have not always applied to the work of previous holders of that office. We shall see what happens to Foggo.

The ABC story relies on unnamed former CIA officials who say that Foggo was instrumental in swinging fat government contracts to Wilkes' semi-pseudo family of "companies":

As executive director of the CIA, Foggo oversees the administration of the giant spy agency. He was appointed to the post by CIA Director Porter Goss after working as a midlevel procurement supervisor, according to former CIA officials.

While based in Frankfurt, Germany, he oversaw and approved contracts for CIA operations in Iraq.

Hmm. Why do I get the strange feeling that some very unnerving stories lurk between the lines of those two short paragraphs? I don't know who those two former officials are, but ABC may have decided to "go to the top" -- which could mean either former DCI George Tenet, or his temporary successor John McLaughlin, or both.

Months ago, I wrote about Wilkes' longstanding and little-understood links to CIA. Those who consider self-quotation a sin will have to forgive me:

* * *

Brent and Dusty. At least 35 years ago, Brent Wilkes' formed a close friendship with Kyle "Dusty" Foggo. They traveled the same respectable-though-not-exemplary academic path together: High School, Southwestern Community College, San Diego State University. Wilkes, some say, was a violent hot-head who brutalized anyone who looked weaker. One source told me that, even in those days, Wilkes and Foggo were obsessed with attaining power -- a goal few young people dared to express at a time when the scent of 60s pacifism still perfumed the air.

Dusty Foggo became first a cop, then a D.A.'s assistant -- and then was recruited into CIA, where he now holds the third-highest position. Some say that he was always more of a desk jockey than a James Bond, but he did do a stint in Honduras during the contra war. He handled their financing.

And now you know why I spent so much time describing all that money that went to the contras -- and perhaps elsewhere.

As for Wilkes: In college, he had studied accounting, which some might consider an odd choice for a bully with dreams of conquest. Like Foggo, he often bragged about his Agency connections. The world doth not love a wide-mouthed spook, or so I've been told -- yet braggadocio seems not to have harmed the career of these two gentlemen. Much evidence supports the contention that Wilkes became a Legitimate Businessman in one of the networks outlined above: He was not of the Agency, in the sense of drawing a regular paycheck, but he became one of those "outside" businessmen who prospered by aiding the Agency, or a faction within it.

According to the San Diego Union Tribune, one of his early business ventures was very, very noteworthy:

Wilkes had moved to Washington, D.C., and opened a business named World Finance Corp. about three blocks away from the White House. One of his chief activities, sources say, was to accompany congressmen -- including then-Rep. Bill Lowery of San Diego, whom Wilkes met during his participation in the SDSU Young Republicans organization – to Central America to meet with Foggo and Contra leaders.

This passage is somewhat misleading in its implication that Wilkes created the World Finance Corporation, which actually had its origin point while Wilkes was still in school. This was no ordinary financial firm; it was once quite notorious. Before there was BCCI, there was the World Finance Corporation -- a CIA-linked money laundromat that probably had recruited Wilkes earlier than the SDUT story indicates.

* * *

End quotation.

The rest of my overly-long piece from last December detailed the history of the spooked-up World Finance Corporation, which began life under the auspices of an anti-Castro Cuban named Guillermo Hernandez-Cartaya, who had been a banker before the revolution.

Incidentally, Daniel Hopsicker has announced in a radio interview that he will soon have more information on Wilkes and the CIA. There may even be a book in the works, tying together the Cunningham and Abramoff scandals.

You can hear the excellent two-part interview with Daniel Hopsicker by going here; download F-542a and F-542b. The Wilkes/Cunningham material is on side B. If you've read my old stories as well as Hopsicker's previous offerings, the material may seem familiar. Still, it is nice to have the matter well-summarized and discussed on the air.

Hopsicker also delivers some fascinating new information about Mohammed Atta and his pre-attack doings and associations -- but that's a post for another time.