Wade admits guilt, feds look at Goode.

Yesterday, when MZM CEO and founder Mitchell Wade pled guilty to conspiracy, election fraud, and bribery, Reuters was the first media outlet to parse the plea and run a story. The piece wasn’t particularly long, but I was interested to see that it focused on my very own Rep. Virgil Goode:

A spokesman for Goode was not immediately available for comment. According to the charges he received at least $46,000 in illegal contributions from MZM.

MZM operates several facilities in Goode’s south-central Virginia district, including one that conducts background checks on foreign-owned defense contractors.

A 2003 press release from Virginia’s governor at the time, Democrat Mark Warner, says Goode was “instrumental” in setting up the project.

Campaign finance expert Larry Noble said it was not unusual for lawmakers to want to bring jobs to their districts but added: “If you received money from MZM and those contracts went to MZM, given the Duke Cunningham situation obviously questions are going to be raised and Congressman Goode has to be prepared to answer questions about MZM.”

Wade is now facing over eleven years in prison on two separate matters, the first involving Congressman Goode and the second involving Charlottesville’s National Ground Intelligence Center.

Goode is not specifically named in the charges (PDF) — he’s instead referred to as “Representative A” — but it is, of course, Goode to whom the charges pertain.

In June I demonstrated that MZM’s contributions to Goode certainly looked coerced, and this plea makes clear that’s just what happened. On March 26, 2003, and March 4, 2005, Wade handed many of his employees $2,000 and instructed them to contribute the same value to Goode. This led to a total of $39 straw contributions from 19 employees and spouses, with Goode getting a whopping $46,000 in illegal contributions from MZM employees.

Save for the fact that Wade was compensating these employees for these contributions, this isn’t news, just confirmation of what seemed likely.

What is news is the close timing of these bundled contributions to Goode and MZM’s federal funding. From the charges:

In the spring of 2005, Wade asked that Representative A and his staff request appropriations funding for an MZM facility in Representative A’s district. In June 2005, Representative A’s staff confirmed to Wade that an appropriations bill would include $9 million for the facility and a related program. Wade thanked Representative A and his staff for their assistance.

This timeline and interaction is remarkably similar to former representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who has gone down for accepting bribes from MZM. The contractor gives tens of thousands of dollars to Goode. A few weeks later, they ask Goode for $9M. A few weeks after that, Goode gives it to them. With any company other than MZM, it would be possible to excuse this as a coincidence. Given the ever-increasing evidence that MZM’s existence is premised on bribery, it is perhaps more reasonable in this case to look at this as a pretty standard case of pay-for-play.

So is Goode a subject of the investigation? The Washington Post reports that prosecutors won’t say. In my (very limited) experience, when prosecutors won’t rule somebody out as a subject of an investigation, that means that there’s a better than even chance that they are a subject.

So what does Virgil Goode have to say about this? Nobody knows — he hasn’t responded to requests for comments by any media outlet. That’s Rep. Goode — always a day late and a dollar short. Or $90,000 ahead, as they case may be.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

8 replies on “Wade admits guilt, feds look at Goode.”

  1. From the Roanoke Times today:
    “I was shocked and amazed to learn the details of the plea agreement concerning former MZM CEO Mitch Wade,” Goode said in a statement. “I had no knowledge that any of the contributions by MZM persons to our campaign were illegal.”

    God this sounds so familiar…

    “The reality is, Jack Abramoff and I were not close personal friends…I met with him only occasionally, in fact less frequently than numerous others who brought issues before Congress – never did he receive preferential treatment. To be certain, I knew nothing about the crimes for which he has pled guilty.” That’s from a letter Tom DeLay sent his constituents this month.

    So let me get this straight: the Dukestir lived on a boat everyone knew was bought and paid for by Mitch Wade, then he’s run out of Congress for being the crook he is, and Goode had no inkling the contributions from the SAME PERSON could have been shady? Nice.

  2. Unfortunately I dont think this means that Goode will lose his seat or even have to fight hard for it. I think Weed will probably break 40% and maybe reach 44-45% if conditions are favorable but a win here seems extremely unlikely to me. Time Kaine did win the 5th district by a small margin (about 2143 votes) but that was mainly because of how far left the upstate portion of the district went. For some reason I think Al Weed will have a hard time wining 60% of the vote in Albemarle, 80% of the vote in Charlottesville, and then carry Fluvanna and Nelson (this is without considering the southern counties that moderated slightly in the gov. race). I support Al Weed and an end to the Culture of Corruption, I hope my neighbors in downstate feel the same way.

  3. Unless somehow this scandal does take down Goode, it will be up to Mr. Weed or Mr. Ewert to play this up as much as humanly possible.

    Goode is going to be more vulnerable this year than any other, which might not be saying much. Regardless, instead of just talking about how absurdly ineffective Virgil is in Congress, the Dem nominee will have to make sure every resident of Southside can’t disassociate Virgil Goode and Tom DeLay.

  4. What about government employees at the NGIC in high positions who have benefited from MZM (Athena) going from a new NGIC contractor to the largest contractor supporting the NGIC in under 2 years. Mr Rich, the director, who’s son started with MZM when they started business in the NGIC with a higher than average salary. Then himself, going to work for them for major $$$ and keeping in contact with the good ole boy network. The contract monitor for the governments son got a job with them after they won FIRES. And lets not forget about the government employee that work for the NGIC in the AIPO that went to work for MZM… and oh he happens to date one of the NGIC contracting officers? hmmmm… Finally, all of the contracts that were given to MZM under the original BPA which was under discussion… were released with a 5 day turn around (late Friday…over a weekend due Tuesday) under another vehicle, which was heavily worded towards someone having people already in place and all were won by Athena. Oh, I did here Athena asked for an extension on one or two of them, but that was after other contracts submitted no bids, since it is impossible to do a good proposal and have all the people required to fill positions in under 5 days unless you are the incumbent.

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