Judge to unseal secret transcripts from Cunningham trial.
By on Aug 30th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Judge to unseal secret transcripts from Cunningham trial.
U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns has decided to unseal the transcripts of a secret court hearing for New York businessman Thomas Kontogiannis, an admitted co-conspirator of former congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham. Kontogiannis paid Cunningham nearly $1 million in bribes, and admitted to bribery charges in Feb. 2007. The Kontogiannis “have been at the center of a legal tug of war for months, with government prosecutors fighting to keep them under wraps.”
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Finally, some real news.
August 30th, 2007 at 12:01 pmHEYOOOooooOoooOooOoooOoo TP
Where is this news story?
Clinton Donor Under a Cloud in Fraud Case
August 30th, 2007 at 12:01 pmhttp://www.nytimes.com/ 2007/ 08/ 30/ us/ politics/ 30bundler.html?ex=1189051200&en=00ee337c9e083c5f&ei=5099&partner=TOPIXNEWS
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Must suppress, censor news about Clinton
Please no more homo 24/7.
August 30th, 2007 at 12:03 pmWhy would government prosecutors want secret trials and sealed transcripts? Are we in Soviet Russia?
August 30th, 2007 at 12:03 pmits on huffpost…….lets move along
August 30th, 2007 at 12:03 pmPlease no more homo 24/7.
Comment by Bob
As long as you are here, it’s impossible to avoid the topic.

August 30th, 2007 at 12:07 pmSen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, stung by criticism for accepting campaign contributions from a convicted felon with questionable fundraising practices, will donate the $23,000 he gave her to charity.
August 30th, 2007 at 12:07 pmBob sez:
Obviously they’re not “censoring” it, as your spamming of this stupid non-story across all of today’s threads has not been addressed.
August 30th, 2007 at 12:09 pm#
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, stung by criticism for accepting campaign contributions from a convicted felon with questionable fundraising practices, will donate the $23,000 he gave her to charity.
Comment by Bob — August 30, 2007 @ 12:07 pm
#
Clinton is a DINO. Most posters here can’t stand her. Essentially, she is Bush, with a vagina. And I’m not even sure about that second part. Calling Hillary a Democrat is like calling Lieberman an Independent.
August 30th, 2007 at 12:12 pmSo will transcripts reveal Cunningham cavorting nude on his boat, while throwing drunken orgy parties, and soaking in his hot tub filled with dirty Potomac river water?
August 30th, 2007 at 12:13 pmComment by Jay Randal — August 30, 2007 @ 12:13 pm
#
Bad, BAD visual! Make it stop!
August 30th, 2007 at 12:15 pmThis can’t be good news for the ReThugs. Film at 11:00, make sure the kids are already in bed.
August 30th, 2007 at 12:19 pmComment by Bob — August 30, 2007 @ 12:01 pm
————————
HeYoo!
Bob!
Comment by FreshElCaminoRollingKiloG
Let’s all observe this troll mating dance in progress.

August 30th, 2007 at 12:46 pmAre the Trolls clearing their droppings with the White House?
Some of them may need some ‘watering down’.
August 30th, 2007 at 12:48 pmHillary give the money back. Now while that’s going on Bush is getting 50 billion from US taxpayers for personal use. Notice no out cry about that but let’s just pay attention to Hillary while we get robbed by Bush. Talk about stupid. it’s to funny. Americans are being robbed right under their nose while the trolls point to Hillary, Obama, Bill or anything else so the Bush crime team can complete the mission. When Americans see the debt Bush/Cheney has put us in you’ll think the fall of the Stock Market looked good. Yes it’s pushing 10 Trillion in debt but it will all be blamed on Bill Clinton and his illegal invasion of Iraq. If only Americans had put George W. Bush the famous successful businessman in office yes baby Bush had three failed business his Daddy gave him now he’s got four the US Treasury.
August 30th, 2007 at 1:39 pmThis is a big story, ongoing see TPM Muckraker and EmptyWheel who was hoping that the truth would be revealed about this mobsters ties to working for the CIA and corrupt congresspersons.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102×2961574
WANTED: THE PHOTO OF DUKE CUNNINGHAM, TOMMY KONTOGIANNIS AND GEORGE W. BUSH, 3 CRIMINALS WORKING ON A PRESIDENTIAL PARDON SCHEME
I don’t know if the San Diego Union-Tribune has turned into one of the best investigative newspapers in America or if they just happen to have the most crooked officials in their area to write about (between Duncan Hunter, Jerry Lewis, Brian Bilbray, Howard Kaloogian, Dana Rohrbacher and, of course, former area resident Randy “Duke” Cunningham). But whatever the reason, anyone who wants to follow the intricacies and machinations of the Republican Culture of Corruption in Washington DC is better off reading the San Diego Union-Tribune than even the New York Times or Washington Post!
Today Joey Cantupe has penned a much-needed follow-up on a side road of the Cunningham scandals few reporters have ventured down: sleazy New York Republican mystery man and big time briber Thomas “Gus” Kontogiannis. I started looking into Kontogiannis last summer when it started to look like Cunningham was getting caught for all the millions and millions of bribes he was taking as part of the criminal conspiracy that was Jerry Lewis’ Defense Appropriations Committee.
You’ll find my Kontogiannis research– with some huffing and puffing– on the link I’ve attached to his name above. The Union-Tribune has some of that background too. They make a good point that I missed, namely that Cunningham was like a kept-woman for Kontogiannis– as they call it “a congressman on retainer.” He was hoping that– and bankrolling– Cunningham’s future, not as a prison inmate but as the next Donald Rumsfeld. An FBI agent working on the case put it like this: “Let’s look at it this way. Duke Cunningham had power and no money, and Tommy Kontogiannis had money but no power.” (And on this not too complicated concept, Tom DeLay and Rick Santorum were able to subvert the American democratic system into the Republican Culture of Corruption that has come to rule in DC– and that has already sent Cunningham to prison and will soon send dozens of Republican elected officials to the same fate.) Oh, and Kontogiannis is also a two-time convicted criminal, both times for bribery, and must have a pardon in order to avail himself of lucrative business opportunities with Uncle Sam.
In 2000, Kontogiannis was arrested for receiving more than $2 million in kickbacks in a bid-rigging scheme involving junk computer foisted on the Queens School District. The district Superintendent, Celestine Miller, a Republican scam artist, with absurd pretensions to get elected to Congress helped Kontogiannis defraud the district. He financed her doomed campaign, in part by giving her a brown paper bag filled with $50,000 in cash. That Cunningham sold him a presidential pardon for $400,000 is the most covered-up part of the Randy “Duke” Cunningham scandals. That’s because there’s only one person who can grant presidential pardons and it isn’t Randy “Duke” Cunningham (nor is it Vice President Cheney, nor Irving Libby, nor Michael Brown, nor Gale Norton, nor Tom DeLay nor any of the myriad corrupt scoundrels Bush has surrounded himself with. Only Bush can grant a presidential pardon. What was his cut of the $400,000 bribe from Kontogiannis?
CONTINUED…
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2006/04/wanted-phot...
Report: Dysfunctional committee let Cunningham have his way
August 30th, 2007 at 4:12 pmPoor Bob. He just can’t understand why TP isn’t criticizing Hillary Clinton for NOT taking a donation from a felon and giving it to charity AFTER she finds out he’s a felon. Memo to Bob: when you find out a contributor is a felon, you can keep the money, return it to the felon, or give it to charity.
Most sane people would agree that the most honorable thing to do is to give it to charity. Bob, if this is all you can gin up against Hillary, she’s looking better and better every day.
August 30th, 2007 at 7:27 pmBob/Jake/whoever… offhand question you have the URL of any rightwing blog that dregs up muck on rightwing candidates on a regular basis?
how many high ranking republicans took money from and/or consorted with convicted felon jack abramhoff?
August 31st, 2007 at 12:01 am