DHS Finds Missing Cunningham Letter

DHS Finds Missing Cunningham Letter
Support Staffer Unearths Recommendation of Limo Company

By Erica Werner
Associated Press
Saturday, June 17, 2006; Page A08

The Department of Homeland Security produced a letter yesterday from former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham recommending a limousine company for federal contracts -- a day after saying it did not have such a letter.

The latest twist in the tale of Shirlington Limousine and Transportation Inc. -- which is part of a federal investigation into whether a defense contractor provided the California Republican with prostitutes and limos -- prompted ridicule and disbelief from lawmakers.

A department spokesman said the letter was discovered in a folder by an administrative assistant who had read news reports yesterday morning about its disappearance.

"She says, 'Oh, I get those kinds of letters all the time -- I just throw them in a folder,' " said DHS spokesman Larry Orluskie. "So she starts looking through the folders and finds this letter."
(snip/...)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/16/AR2006061601609.html?nav=rss_nation



Randy Cunningham

Next time, don't forget quotation marks.

n/t

Weren't they getting away with losing it in the first place?

on all Americans. I can never decide whether their blithering incompetence is reassuring or even more frightening.

to the procurement department, and played no part in the contract awarded 4 months later? It's been in this "dead" file for over 2 years and was never looked at? She gets these "all the time" and makes the decision to just toss them into this file that no one ever looks at? Must be a pretty full folder. Wonder what her retention policy is for a file folder she pretty much treats as one step above the "round file".

g

All Those WMD's

talked about it at all on the tee vee...

You can see the letter here, along with some interesting analysis: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000932.php

One day after an official swore under oath that the Department of Homeland Security had no record of a letter from Randy "Duke" Cunningham pushing her agency to do business with the scandal-linked Shirlington Limo company, the department reversed course and released the letter.

....Republicans on the House Homeland Security committee went ballistic. "The Department of Homeland Security has a lot to explain," a press release quoted chairman Peter King (R-NY) as saying. "Despite repeated assurances to the contrary, it now turns out that the Department had the Cunningham letter all along. This is yet another example of DHS incompetence-and I think it may have been more than just bad record-keeping."

"This letter certainly puts the Department's credibility on the line, and raises further questions about political manipulation in the contracting process," the release quotes Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) as saying.

Duke Cunningham, of course, is serving out an eight year-plus prison sentence for taking bribes. Federal investigators have been told that Shirlington ferried Duke around town, as well as prostitutes which serviced him....