U.S. Attorney Carol Lam was fired by White House direction when her investigations resulted in the indictment of a prominent GOP congressman and took down the newly installed leadership of the CIA. At the core of the defense contracting corruption investigation she headed were former CIA Director Porter Goss’s right-hand man, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo and Poway, California-based defense contractor Brent Wilkes. Accounts emerging from the current Congressional probe show that the main office of the Justice Department repeatedly obstructed and delayed Lam’s investigation and that the move to dismiss her came when her investigation turned to examine suspicious contracts between the White House and one of the investigation’s targets. Email traffic surrounding the decision indicated that the reasons for Lam’s dismissal were too sensitive to discuss in writing. On Friday, federal prosecutors reindicted Foggo and Wilkes on some thirty counts. Critical to the new indictments are allegations that Foggo supplied Wilkes with highly classified national security secrets in order to enable him to bid more effectively for contracts.
Dusty Foggo Indicted on Further ChargesAccording to the new indictment, Foggo provided Wilkes with “sensitive, internal information related to our national security,” including classified information, to help him prepare proposals for providing undercover flights for the CIA under the guise of a civil aviation company and armored vehicles for agency operations.
Then, he pushed his CIA colleagues to hire Wilkes’ companies without disclosing their friendship, prosecutors allege. In a June 2005 e-mail to the head of CIA air operations quoted in the indictment, Foggo offered to “use some ’EXDIR grease”’ on Wilkes’ behalf. Foggo was the agency’s executive director at the time.
Prosecutors say that in return, Wilkes offered to hire Foggo after he retired from government service. In the meantime, they say, he treated his friend to a Scottish golf trip during which they racked up a $44,000 hotel bill at the luxurious Pitcastle Estate.
