Source: Duke Cunningham Pushed for Assassinations

[sabra]

Source: CQ Politics

Former California Rep. Randall "Duke" Cunningham, convicted on charges of taking bribes to steer CIA contracts to friends, constantly badgered intelligence officials to develop assassination teams, says a usually reliable source who says he was present during the confrontations.

The CIA eventually contracted with the Blackwater security firm, now known as XE, to develop plans to assassinate terrorists.

It could not be learned whether the disgraced former Republican congressman was involved in the 2004 Blackwater contract, which produced little more than "Power Point presentations" at a cost of $20 million, according to many accounts.

But Cunningham, now serving an eight-and-a-half year sentence, was a relentless advocate of assassinations and serving on committees where he could influence contracts for such plans, the official said.

...

Milt Bearden, a former CIA station chief in Pakistan, declined to guess what Blackwater/XE did to spend $20 million over the past five years and not get a single mission off the ground.

"It's time that we understand that if the United states is doing something that involves a huge moral component -- like killing folks -- it should be done by persons fully accountable to the government," Bearden said in an e-mail Sunday night.


Read more: http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2009/08/source-duke-cunningham-pushed.html

[marmar]

1. Put this freak under the jailhouse.

n/t

[roguevalley]

10. another small penis-big gun freak.

[Dr_Willie_Feelgood]

19. People with small tools...

...ARE pretty useless, aren't they?

Life belongs to the large Johnsons of this world. They are happy and confident, whereas the "little" guys are all bitter gun freak Republicans.

[roguevalley]

22. seems to be sometimes, don't you think?

[Dr_Willie_Feelgood]

24. It is true!

I am a "little guy", white, middle aged, and overweight, and while I try hard to stay positive, deep down I realize that (a) no woman REALLY wants me as a lover, and (b) I really wish I were dead!

[cascadiance]

26. Rumor has it Cunningham was a closet gay...

Apparently he was "outed" earlier, though it wasn't confirmed, and he denies it. But kind of fits him into the pattern of all of these closet sexual behaviors we see with Rethugs!

http://www.washblade.com/2003/7-4/news/national/birchdeny.cfm

Birch denies
‘Duke’ Cunningham denies meeting Birch or questioning whether he is gay


Rep. Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham (R-Calif.) decried the presence of ‘homos in the military’ on the floor of Congress in 1995. He matches many of the details of a story told by HRC’s Elizabeth Birch about a member of Congress who seemed to be questioning his sexual orientation.

Jul 04, 2003 | By: LOU CHIBBARO JR. |

It began as a remarkable vignette about a virulently anti-gay congressman who reached out in private to gay activists with questions about how people know if they are gay. But last month, retold before an audience of nearly 200 at a Gay Pride town hall meeting, a remembered encounter from eight years ago has raised questions about whether the leader of this country’s largest gay rights organization has on several occasions effectively outed a member of Congress.

The most recent occasion was a Gay Pride forum on June 3, where a panel of gay rights leaders was addressing whether there was “a gay agenda.” Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, began her presentation, which focused in part on reaching out to gay rights foes, with an example about a private meeting she and an HRC colleague had in 1995 with an unnamed conservative Republican congressman who opposes gay rights.

The congressman startled her, Birch said, when he ushered his staff members out of his Capitol Hill office, closed the door, and asked Birch and Daniel Zingale, then HRC’s political director, just how it was that they came to know that they are gay.

“You know, how do you know you’re that way?” Birch quoted the congressman as asking.

In hushed tones, Birch told the audience that the congressman leaned back against his desk and revealed that he was asking the question because he had “loved men” in his past.

...

[TankLV]

17. No - Make a MOVIE starring TOM HANKS!!! He's a "HERO"!!!

I need to puke now...

[cascadiance]

18. They already did... Tom Cruise "played him" in "Top Gun"!...

Tom Cruise also played another political figure before he gained notoriety. He also played David Iglesias in "A Few Good Men".

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-blumenthal/the-tom-cruise-nexus-of-w_b_42894.html

[sasquatch]

2. Good, add a life sentence to his jail time already

[PHIMG]

6. NO...cut a deal with him to name names.

When a Republican is destroyed by a Republican administration, the question to ask is : "Why was this Republican a threat? What crime did he refuse to go along with? Why did the administration want to discredit and destroy him?"

When the party in power goes after one of it's own you need to turn on your cynicism and ask why?

Esp when that party in power was willing to break other laws to swing elections for other Republicans.

They destroyed Cunningham to keep something else secret, I'd bet big money.

[Ozymanithrax]

3. I served under Cunningham when he Commanded a squadron...

in the Navy.

He was about as scummy as you could get then. So I am not surprised with these new reports.

[grantcart]

4. I wonder if he was going to get an override on each hit.

[divideandconquer]

5. NRA congressional superstar who famously wanted liberals lined up and shot

What do you expect from a gun nut?

[OnyxCollie]

8. Or a kick back. nt

[peacetalksforall]

7. Do you think his tears before the cameras included tears of regret fo rthis also?.

[tanyev]

9. Wow, how'd he manage to squeeze that in between his bribes, hookers, and yacht parties?

More of a multi-tasker than I gave him credit for.

[leveymg]

11. If this is true, it unites the Abramoff and Blackwater wings of the Vast GOP Dirty Tricks Machine

into a One-Stop Shop for murder, foreign influence peddling, torture, universal surveillance, a police state for fun and profit.

We're lucky we survived the Bush-Cheney era.

[Octafish]

13. You don't think an ultrarightist GOP crook'd think of targeting a liberal Democratic Senator?

Yes, we are lucky. Remember the B-52 flying around, armed with nukes?

No, we're not out of the woods yet. We'll be safe when they all have been investigated, prosecuted and put behind bars for life.

[leveymg]

14. No more than I believe that they'd kill a million other people.

Or 100 million more, if the Generals hadn't stopped them. "Against all enemies."

[NecklyTyler]

12. Aluminum foil hat time

:tinfoilhat:

CIA:

We spent that 20,000,000 dollars on PowerPoint presentations and the hot air expelled by a convicted felon Congressman (who won't be having anything to say from his prison cell anytime soon) and we didn't perform a single clandestine act with ANY of that money!


Just move along folks, nothing to see here

[leveymg]

15. Good point. "Nothing to Xe", as some wag here put it the other day.

Although, $20 million won't pay the bar bill for a week at the Army-Navy Club.

Chump change for chumps. I'm beginning to think that Blackwater was a way to get all the really bad people together so it was easier to keep an eye on them all. $20 million does buy a lot of rope.

[cascadiance]

16. That's interesting... If he was involved, Duncan Hunter should probably also be investigated...

... and I believe from personal information I had from John Rinaldi, who ran against Hunter in the election right before U.S. Attorney Carol Lam was fired, that he was being investigated. I'm guessing that perhaps if she weren't fired, she might have indicted more than just Brent Wilkes, Dusty Foggo, and John Michael (nephew of earlier charged money launderer Thomas Kontogiannis), and gone after Hunter as well as a few other Southern California congressmen that people suspected were being looked at at the time. And there was a lot of information pointing to Hunter trying to ramrod approvals, etc. of getting Blackwater sites in the San Diego area, even that spilt over to Bob Filner's district, which Filner objected to heavily when he found out that they tried to sidetrack him and others on getting this approval happening within his district.

Hunter's very lame attempt to run for president almost seemed like his own form of a "google bomb", to drown any potential damaging stories that might come out about him (he had a number of problems with real estate and other issues as well as this similar to Duke Cunningham). Also interested that he retired after this election and his son (by the same name) took over his spot in congress. Perhaps another move to keep the scrutiny off him if he's no longer an elected figure.

[Algorem]

20. better than having to sit in his hot tub

[No Elephants]

21. K and R

[karynnj]

23. All the more reason to be happy that Kerry created the "cunningham act"

which, for future legislators (not Cunningham as it can't be retroactive) who commit certain crimes lose their pensions.

I hope that informal name is used to forever "honor" Cunningham.

[mitchum]

25. I hope Cunningham's pasty and flabby ass is being bartered for cigarettes