Introducing Hookergate @ Watergate: Porter Goss is a pimp; Cunningham scandal now includes Watergate prostitutes & poker

Oddly enough, I was watching American Pimp earlier tonight, and those guys are small fry compared with corrupt DC defense contractors. When I said earlier that MZM, the corrupt contractor that hooked up Duke Cunningham with a house and lotsa goodies, had its fingers in many separate scandal pies, well, I didn't think that included a 15-year prostitution ring with a Homeland Security-approved limo service and late night, cigar chomping prostitute "bacchanalias" at the Watergate with CIA Director Porter Goss. Evidently, reality has come along to make me look tame. Here's the latest:

Stories have been breaking all over the media for the last few days about how the MZM guys hooked up Cunningham with hookers and they partied at the Watergate for old time's sake. The Wall Street Journal broke it out on Thursday, the San Diego Union Tribune got a story out Sunday, as did the NY Times. Ken Silverstein in Harper's put this out on Thursday: Red Lights on Capitol Hill?

The two defense contractors who allegedly bribed Cunningham, said the Journal, were Brent Wilkes, the founder of ADCS Inc., and Mitchell Wade, the founder of MZM Inc.; both firms profited greatly from their connections with Cunningham. The Journal also suggested that other lawmakers might be implicated. I've learned from a well-connected source that those under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence comittees—including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post. I've also been able to learn the name of the limousine service that was used to ferry the guests and other attendees to the parties: Shirlington Limousine and Transportation of Arlington, Virginia. Wilkes, I've learned, even hired Shirlington as his personal limousine service....

As to the festivities themselves, I hear that party nights began early with poker games (see Clarification, below) and degenerated into what the source described as a "frat party" scene—real bacchanals. Apparently photographs were taken, and investigators are anxiously procuring copies. My heart beats faster in fevered anticipation.

Perhaps this will ensnare Goss and Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, Goss' #3 at the CIA, TPMmuckraker suggests. Laura Rozen adds:

I'm told these poker parties may have indirectly helped put Dusty Foggo on Porter Goss's radar through the person of Goss's deputy Patrick Murray. . . Writes one source, "...Wilkes and Foggo played cards together in washington in the late 1990s and early 2000s. . . It is apparently through this connection that Foggo came to the attention of Goss when Goss' first choice for executive director, Michael Kostiw, was nixed..."

On the record, the CIA denies the charges against Goss, but they wouldn't say about Foggo. Also check out the muckers' Hookergate: Everybody wants a piece of the action. Editor&Publisher comments on the emerging media frenzy, and the San Diego Union Tribune writer said on MSNBC:

SCARBOROUGH: You have obviously and your papers been all over this Cunningham scandal from the very beginning — What are your sources telling you about this latest information that the Wall Street Journal reported on today about possible trading of prostitutes for votes?

CALBREATH: We and a number of other papers have been on this for about six months or so. We have all been looking for the break in this and the Wall Street Journal found it, which is the confirmation that the feds were actually looking at this. For the past six months there we have been hearing a lot of rumors that not only Congressman Cunningham but as many as a half dozen other congressmen may have been involved in this. And we’ve also been hearing about the limousine service that Brent Wilkes used to bring prostitutes to the Watergate hotel and the Grand Westin in Washington.

And well, why not add this from the very same reporter (via "Contractors' Hooker Ring Lasted 15 Years"):

Several of Wilkes' former employees and business associates say he used the hospitality suites over the past 15 years to curry favor with lawmakers as well as officials with the CIA, where both Wilkes and Wade sought contracts.

Wilkes hosted parties for lawmakers and periodic poker games that included CIA officials as well as members of the House Appropriations and Intelligence committees. Cunningham, who sat on both committees, was a frequent guest, according to some of the participants in the poker games.

There was also some CIA agent nicknamed Nine Fingers who liked to play, apparently. At least some dimension of these poker parties were reported in an Atlanta paper as far back as 1994! Wonkette awards a prize to the great Mitchell Wade, who is now the Ron Jeremy of lobbyists...

Mitchell Wade, for telling investigators that you provided a congressman with hookers, limos, and rooms at the Watergate, you are an American Hero. We salute you, corrupt contractor, and hope there are plenty more where you came from.

Was the firing of Mary McCarthy just a last-ditch red herring to blame "Democrats" for the general CIA mess these days?