The Daily Background

Oh snap. A short while ago, I wrote a post entitled “MZM: What it is, and why it matters“. In it, I wrote the following:

So all of this is very bad. And MZM and Cunningham went under investigation in 2005. Cunningham was sentenced to 8 years and a 4 months recently, Wade has yet to be sentenced (the tentative date for his sentencing is in August, meanwhile he’s cooperating with prosecutors, which may lead to the indictments of others). But, as those involved in this have been found guilty, it would appear that everything ended up all right. Herein lies the problem. When the investigation was in full swing in summer of 2005, on June 28, the Pentagon ordered that no new contracts be awarded to MZM Inc, after it became more obvious what had happened. That sounds reasonable at the very least (after all I know I would have demanded money back).

However that didn’t guarantee the end of the stream of our tax money going to MZM Inc. However, less than a month later, MZM was taken “out of the doghouse” and allowed to bid on multi-million dollar contract work again.

I ended that post by noting that our tax money was still going to them. My thoughts, although I didn’t explicitly say them, were that MZM was probably not going to be investigated, and that the cycle of corruption was going to continue (minus a few bad apples perhaps, but still continue).

I have to say, I’m quite happy to report that I was wrong in thinking that our tax money will keep flowing to MZM, unhindered. Well, not really wrong, but at least something is going to happen about it. Whether it stops the money flow or not. Get this:

Pentagon Orders Investigation Of Cunningham’s MZM Earmark

Undersecretary of Defense Stephen A. Cambone has ordered an internal study of how funding earmarked in a bill by then-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) led to contracts for MZM Inc. to do work for the Pentagon’s newest intelligence agency, the Counterintelligence Field Activity, a Defense Department spokesman said.

Cunningham pleaded guilty last November to tax evasion and taking bribes from contractors, including the former president of MZM, Mitchell J. Wade. Wade pleaded guilty last month to bribery-related charges and to making illegal campaign contributions to Cunningham and other legislators.

I’m glad that at least some type of investigation will occur, and that the corrupt private contractor company MZM is going to be subject to more scrutiny. I personally would have ordered a halt of all ongoing payment and future payment to MZM, pending the results of a full investigation. But you can’t always get what you want I guess. Full article.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog