What’s for Dinner?

The other new element was the special counsel’s call for further investigation into the award of large CIA contracts to yet another unidentified company. Federal sources and lawyers close to the case—who asked not to be identified talking about classified matters—tell NEWSWEEK that the unidentified company in the report is Global Transportation Systems (GTS), a Virginia-based shipping broker whose president, Richard Wenzel, has emerged as a potentially key witness in ongoing federal investigations into political influence peddling that have grown out of the Cunningham case, the sources said.

In January 2004, according to investigative blogger Laura Rozen , Wenzel and his company hired as Washington lobbyists a company affiliated with Brent Wilkes, a San Diego businessman who has been named as an unindicated co-conspirator in the Cunningham case. The committee report also describes a private dinner at a fancy Washington restaurant attended by Wenzel, Wilkes, former top CIA official Kyle (Dusty) Foggo and a House Intelligence Committee staffer apparently seeking a job from Wenzel. (Lawyers for Foggo and Wilkes have denied any wrongdoing by their clients. Wenzel could not be reached for comment.) The clear suggestion in the committee counsel's report is that these alleged cozy relationships among congressional staffers and government officials may have distorted national-security contracting and cost the taxpayers millions of dollars—issues that are potentially more serious than the low-priority probe of Harman or her political feuds with her House colleagues.

© 2006