In 2005, Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham plead guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud, and tax evasion. He admitted to taking $2.4 million in bribe from defense contractors. The Duke is now serving an eight-year sentence.

The Duke was living a pretty sweet life because he was a member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, which allowed him to take bribes and then funnel contracts. He had a mansion near San Diego that he bought for $700,000 below market value and when in DC he lived aboard a yacht that was owned by defense contractors. Occasionally, the Duke would have prostitutes swing by the yacht so he could put his old, nasty penis inside of them. It was a really good time.

But then he got caught. The scandal took down a few Washington insiders, including the number 3 man at the CIA, Dusty Foggo, defense contractor Brent Wilkes, former Navy officer Mitchell Wade and New York financier Thomas Kontogiannis. The prosecutor, US Attorney Carol Lam, was later fired by Republicans to punish her for doing her job and to stop the investigation from spreading to other party members.

The House Intelligence Committee ordered an internal investigation into the scandal to determine what went wrong and how The Duke got away with his illegal activities as a member of the committee. The investigation was finished last year, but Republicans controlled the committee and they would not release the report.

Democrats were outraged! The ranking Democrat on the committee, Jane Harman, fought to have the full report released.

For months! My, God, nobody would listen to the woman! Harman then wrote up a five-page summary and released it herself, without consent from the Republicans. Republicans were then outraged! The next day one of Harman’s staffers was suspended over some trumped up intelligence leak bullshit that was totally unrelated to the report. Eventually the controversy just went away.

But now the Democrats control Congress, so they can release the full report, right? Wrong. It turns out Democrats are just a different version of corrupt fucks. According to yesterday’s LA Times:

Why would they do such a thing? Aren’t the Democrats bringing ethics and integrity back to Washington? Nope. Two weeks ago, several Democrats on the committee voted to block the report’s release to other members of Congress. Forget about the report being released to the public, the dirty committee doesn’t even want the rest of Congress to see it. The Democrats are now hiding their shady part in the Duke Cunningham scandal.

The report details how many senior aides knew what The Duke was up to, but failed to take action. They were “deeply troubled” but went along with his crimes “out of fear.”

So, committee staffers were afraid of a man who was blatantly breaking the law. No wonder they don’t want the report to come out, it just solidifies the belief that Democrats are raging pussies. According to the report, aides didn’t want Cunningham to “nuclear or ballistic." That is a great point; the Democrats should take that to the FBI and see if the agency can implement it into their crime fighting tactics. "Don't stop criminals because they might yell at you." The committee staff did have time to point out the complete waste of money and fraud that was going on in emails.

Nicely done. Thanks for doing the work of the people with a snarky email. It is obvious why the Democrats don’t want this report to come out: They will look like assholes. They been saying the Republican rubber stamp Congress was the problem, when in fact it is the entire system. If this report were to be made public it would just shine a light on their dirty little secrets.

Representative Silvestre Reyes is now the Democratic chairman of the committee. He breaks down why the public shouldn't see the report.

Oh, perfect. How does this help the Democrats calls for the White House to answer subpoenas into the US Attorney scandal? The Department of Justice can just have their own little internal investigation and “incorporate changes.”

Aren’t you the same Silvestre Reyes who said this?

Ooo, pubic debates. That sounds fun! Maybe now that the House Intelligence Committee has been caught up in the worst fraud case in the history of Congress, it could take your advice and attempt to restore some
trust.

But that "fessing up" advice was only for the CIA. It’s totally different for the House Intelligence Committee. Didn’t take long for the Democrats to take over where the Republicans left off.