Washington Deal Maker Details Palm Greasing
By David Johnston and David D. Kirkpatrick
The New York Times

Sunday 06 August 2006

Washington - In 1992, Brent R. Wilkes rented a suite at the
Hyatt Hotel a few blocks from the Capitol. In his briefcase
was a stack of envelopes for a half-dozen congressmen,
each packet containing up to $10,000 in checks.

Mr. Wilkes had set up separate meetings with the lawmakers
hoping to win a government contract, and he planned to
punctuate each pitch with a campaign donation. But his
hometown congressman, Representative Bill Lowery of
San Diego, a Republican, told him that presenting the checks
during the sessions was not how things were done,
Mr. Wilkes recalled.

Instead, Mr. Wilkes said, Mr. Lowery taught him the right way
to do it: hand over the envelope in the hallway outside the
suite, at least a few feet away.

That was the beginning of a career built on what Mr. Wilkes
calls "transactional lobbying," which made him a rich man but
also landed him in the middle of a criminal investigation.

Last November, Mr. Wilkes was described as "co-conspirator
No. 1" in a plea agreement signed by Representative Randy
Cunningham, a California Republican on the House
Appropriations Committee. In the plea deal, Mr. Cunningham
admitted accepting more than $2.4 million in cash and gifts
from Mr. Wilkes and other contractors. Another defense
contractor, Mitchell J. Wade, pleaded guilty to paying some of
the bribes.

Mr. Wilkes could also figure in a related federal investigation
into the House Appropriations Committee. The inquiry has
focused on ties between Mr. Lowery, who left Congress and
became a lobbyist, and Representative Jerry Lewis, a
California Republican who is the chairman of the committee
and the former chairman of its Defense Subcommittee.

Speaking publicly for the first time since Mr. Cunningham's
plea agreement, Mr. Wilkes said in recent interviews that he
had done nothing wrong and did not believe that Mr. Lewis
and Mr. Lowery had broken the law. Mr. Wilkes, who has not
been charged in the Cunningham case, has refused
prosecutors' appeals to plead guilty.

But Mr. Wilkes acknowledged that he was a willing
participant in what he characterized as a "cutthroat" system
n which campaign contributions were a prerequisite for
federal contracts. "I attempted to get help and advice from
people who could show me the way to do it right," Mr. Wilkes
said. "I played by their rules, and I played to win."

Mr. Wilkes said he was speaking now to rebut false
assertions about him by prosecutors and the news media.
While it is unknown whether his account is complete and it is
impossible to verify his recollections of certain conversations,
many aspects of his story were confirmed by federal records,
other documents and interviews with people involved in the
events he described.

The Cunningham scandal set off alarms about the
proliferation of Congressional earmarks - money for pet
projects inserted anonymously in spending bills - which critics
say pervert public policy, encourage cronyism and waste
federal money. The 12,000 earmarks in this year's spending
bills amount to $64 billion.

Offering a rare insider's view, Mr. Wilkes described the
appropriations process as little more than a shakedown. He
said that lobbyists close to the committee members
unceasingly demanded campaign contributions from
entrepreneurs like him. Mr. Wilkes and his associates have
given more than $706,000 to federal campaigns since 1997,
according to public records, and he said he had brought in
more as a fund-raiser. Since 2000, Mr. Wilkes's principal
company has received about $100 million in federal contracts.

Mr. Wilkes described the system bluntly: "Lowery would
always say, 'It is a two-part deal,' " he recalled. " 'Jerry will
make the request. Jerry will carry the vote. Jerry will have
plenty of time for this. If you don't want to make the
contributions, chair the fund-raising event, you will get left
behind.' "

Lanny A. Breuer, a lawyer for Mr. Lowery, acknowledged that
his client had been a lobbyist for Mr. Wilkes. But he said
Mr. Wilkes's portrait of their dealings was "an absolute
fabrication."

"Bill Lowery never demanded lobbying fees in return for any
kind of a guarantee of an earmark," Mr. Breuer said. "He
never demanded contributions to Jerry Lewis. There was
absolutely no quid pro quo."

Barbara Comstock, a spokeswoman for Mr. Lewis, said the
congressman was unaware of any conversations like those
Mr. Wilkes described having with Mr. Lowery.

Contractors who do business with the federal government
routinely contribute to the campaigns of Congressional
appropriators, and politicians frequently assist constituents
in their efforts to win government contracts. But legal experts
say that explicitly linking official acts to campaign
contributions could constitute a criminal offense, including
bribery or extortion. They caution that proving criminal intent
is difficult.

The culture of the House Appropriations Defense
Subcommittee is one of great power and little scrutiny.
Mr. Wilkes said every member appeared to have a personal
allowance of millions of dollars to disburse without public
disclosure. Lawmakers, though, sometimes boast about
money being spent in their districts.

In the spending bill for this fiscal year, each member took
credit for an average $27 million in earmarks, with the
chairman, Representative C. W. Bill Young, Republican of
Florida, claiming about $125 million, according to Taxpayers
for Common Sense, a nonpartisan group that tracks
earmarks.

"Feast or Famine"

When Mr. Lowery became a lobbyist, he set himself up as a
gatekeeper to his old friend, Mr. Lewis, the appropriations
chairman, Mr. Wilkes said. At times, Mr. Lowery hinted
ominously that Mr. Lewis might block future earmarks if
Mr. Wilkes stopped making campaign donations and paying
Mr. Lowery's fees, Mr. Wilkes said.

In recent months, Mr. Lewis has said that he barely knew
Mr. Wilkes and that he did not remember seeing him in nearly
a decade. But Mr. Wilkes says their relationship was closer
than that.

Ever since they went on a scuba-diving trip together in 1993,
he said, Mr. Lewis had referred to him as his "diving buddy."
They occasionally dined together or met at political functions,
Mr. Wilkes said. At a Las Vegas fund-raiser in April 2005,
Mr. Wilkes said, Mr. Lewis greeted him as "Brento" and
hugged him as Mr. Wilkes surprised the lawmaker with
$25,000 in campaign contributions.

At his peak, Mr. Wilkes controlled a dozen companies whose
work included digital document storage. The federal
government was his chief customer, and he spent up to 30
weeks a year in Washington courting congressmen and
agency procurement officials.

Mr. Wilkes capitalized on the system. The license plate on his
black Hummer still reads "MIPR ME," a reference to a "military
interdepartmental purchase request" -- bureaucratic jargon
for payments for a defense contract.

Mr. Wilkes built a headquarters of smoked glass and
stainless steel outside San Diego with a 450-seat banquet
hall, where Cirque du Soleil performed at a birthday party for
his wife, Regina. He crossed the country in private jets and
raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Bush-Cheney
ticket in 2004, making him a Republican "Pioneer."

Nancy Luque, his lawyer, said the image of Mr. Wilkes as a
swaggering deal maker was a caricature. "He had his life in
Washington and then his real life," Ms. Luque said. "His real
life was his family, his friends and his business."

His success, though, depended on government contracts.
"It's a feast or famine deal," Mr. Wilkes said. "If we didn't get
our earmark, we were finished."

Washington Connections

A former accountant in Washington and San Diego,
Mr. Wilkes had known Mr. Lowery casually for years in
California Republican circles. Because of those ties, a San
Diego businessman hired Mr. Wilkes as a consultant in 1992
to help persuade Congress to earmark contracts for his
company, Audre, which was seeking to convert military
documents into digital form.

Mr. Lowery, in his final months in Congress, was looking for
new opportunities as well. He had decided to resign after a
1992 inquiry into the misuse of an internal House bank found
that he had written more than 300 bad checks.

Mr. Wilkes said Mr. Lowery set up meetings for him with a
handful of House Defense Subcommittee members, including
Representative John P. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat
who was the chairman at the time, and Mr. Lewis. Mr. Lowery
instructed Mr. Wilkes to go to the sessions prepared.

"Lowery says, 'We should raise money; you get the checks,' "
Mr. Wilkes recalled, describing the meetings at the Hyatt. "I
was a rookie. I didn't want to separate the checks from the
briefing," he said, explaining that he did not understand the
need to avoid appearing to link the money to his pitch.

Although they welcomed the checks, Mr. Wilkes said, the
lawmakers seemed bored by a lengthy presentation. "I
became the king of the 10-minute meeting," he said.

Later that year, Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Lowery took a diving trip
to Belize, where they visited the United States ambassador.
Eugene Scassa, then the envoy, said in an interview that
Mr. Lowery had quizzed him about his out-of-pocket
expenses and then suggested, "You need a chuck wagon."

Mr. Scassa said Mr. Lowery pointed to Mr. Wilkes and
explained: "He is a chuck wagon. If you have expenses, they
pay. If you go out to lunch, they pay. If you need a pair of
boots, you go out to the chuck wagon to get them." (The
next year, Mr. Lowery and Mr. Wilkes returned for a diving
trip with Mr. Lewis.)

When Mr. Lowery left Congress in January 1993, Mr. Wilkes
hired him to lobby for Audre. Mr. Wilkes was impressed by
Mr. Lowery's knowledge of the Defense Subcommittee and
his confidence in being able to help deliver an earmark.

Mr. Lowery and Mr. Lewis seemed "like brothers," Mr. Wilkes
said. "These guys ate dinner together a hundred times a
year."

Mr. Wilkes and Audre executives gave members of the
Appropriations Committee about $54,000 in campaign
donations from 1992 to 1994. The Defense Subcommittee
earmarked $14 million for Audre in 1993 and $20 million in
1994.

Mr. Wilkes said that at his suggestion, several recipients of
his campaign contributions -- Mr. Lewis; Mr. Cunningham;
Representative Charlie Wilson, Democrat of Texas; and
Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California --
wrote a letter to top defense officials supporting the
expenditures. Mr. Lewis wrote a second letter to an admiral.

In December 1994, Mr. Wilkes set up his own company,
ADCS, and continued to use Mr. Lowery's services. Later, the
lobbyist got Mr. Wilkes invited to a party at Mr. Lewis's town
house. The purpose was to help pay the legal bills of former
Representative Joseph M. McDade, a Pennsylvania
Republican charged with bribery in awarding earmarks. (He
was acquitted in 1996.) Many members of the Appropriations
Committee and many prominent lobbyists, Democrat and
Republican, were there.

"The set of rules that Lowery was teaching me was obviously
the right set of rules," Mr. Wilkes recalled thinking. "If I
wasn't playing the game the way they wanted me to, I never
would have been there."

During his Washington visits, Mr. Wilkes held poker games at
the Watergate Hotel, in a suite stocked with beer, Scotch
and cigars. He invited several congressmen, colleagues and
intelligence officials. Among the occasional guests was Kyle
Foggo, the chief administrative officer of the Central
Intelligence Agency and a childhood friend of Mr. Wilkes.

Federal prosecutors in San Diego are investigating whether
Mr. Foggo, who resigned in May after coming under scrutiny,
accepted vacation travel expenses from Mr. Wilkes in
exchange for a classified agency supply contract, lawyers
involved in the case said.

Ms. Luque, Mr. Wilkes's lawyer, said, "My client did not give
his best friend of over 40 years anything because of any
position he may have held." Mr. Foggo's lawyer, Mark J.
MacDougall, said his client had done nothing unlawful.

Former colleagues say Mr. Wilkes was frank about his view of
the appropriations process in Washington. "He was just on a
power trip," said Steve Caira, the former chief executive of a
company that sometimes collaborated with Mr. Wilkes. "You
would be at a party, and he would come out and say he paid
this guy so-and-so, if you throw enough money at him you
will get your share back," Mr. Caira recalled. Mr. Wilkes
denied making those comments.

In Mr. Cunningham's guilty plea, prosecutors portrayed the
lawmaker as eager to help Mr. Wilkes. In court documents,
they say Mr. Wilkes made cash payments of more than
$500,000 to Mr. Cunningham, who intervened to help him
earn earmarks and pressed a Defense Department official for
faster payment of an inflated invoice. Mr. Cunningham was
sentenced to eight years and four months in prison.

Mr. Wilkes said that in recent years, he preferred to work
with other Appropriations Committee members. In 1998,
records show, he turned to Mr. Lewis for help with the
Veterans Affairs administration. Mr. Wilkes was then a
subcontractor on a project paid through the Department of
Veterans Affairs, and he wanted to take over as the primary
contractor. In February 1999, he met with Jeffrey Shockey, a
Lewis aide, to ask the congressman's office to intervene,
according to a follow-up letter by Mr. Wilkes that was
obtained by The New York Times.

When a Veterans Affairs accounting officer complained about
questions from a congressman on ADCS's behalf, a Wilkes
aide, Mike Williams, wrote back that Mr. Lewis was "a close
personal friend of Brent's." The letter offered to "have the
congressman's office contact the V.A. to put this issue to
rest."

Sometimes, Mr. Wilkes said, lobbyists offered him an earmark
if he could come up with a project. In 2004, he said, Edwin A.
Buckham, another lobbyist for Mr. Wilkes, reported that the
House Appropriations Committee wanted to make a
"going-away gift" in the form of an earmark to
Representative George Nethercutt, Republican of
Washington, who was leaving his seat on the panel to run
for the Senate.

Mr. Wilkes suggested a shipboard communications project in
Washington State and got $1 million for it. Mr. Nethercutt
said he thought the technology was promising.

As he grew more confident, Mr. Wilkes said, he often
considered dropping Mr. Lowery, whose fees had escalated
to $25,000 a month by 2005, from $2,500. But Mr. Wilkes
said Mr. Lowery threatened to block future projects if their
relationship ended. Mr. Wilkes said Mr. Lowery had warned
several times that doing so could prompt Mr. Lewis to cut off
earmarks, saying, "You don't want me telling those guys on
the committee that you are moving on without me." That
meant, Mr. Wilkes said, "I'd be out of business."

Mr. Breuer, Mr. Lowery's lawyer, said Mr. Lowery did not
make any such threats and called the account "pure
fantasy." He pointed out that in the late 1990's the two men
severed their relationship for a few years, but that
Mr. Wilkes retained Mr. Lowery again in 2002.

Business in Jeopardy

In the end, it was the Cunningham investigation that
jeopardized Mr. Wilkes's business with the government. In
August 2005, a team of F.B.I. agents swept through
Mr. Wilkes's headquarters. The flow of earmarks, his
companies' lifeblood, dried up. He laid off 200 employees.

Ms. Luque said her client's legal problems were a battle that
he "will fight and win."

She said federal prosecutors told her in January that they
were not interested in Mr. Wilkes's dealings with
Mr. Lowery and Mr. Lewis. "Cunningham couldn't have
followed through on what he did without the cooperation of
other people on the committee," Ms. Luque said.
Prosecutors should be looking at the entire committee, she
said.

Sitting in his office recently, the shelves lined with
photographs of himself with President Bush, Vice President
Dick Cheney and the presidential adviser Karl Rove,
Mr. Wilkes reflected on his plight.

"I'm a dead man. I wouldn't be able to get a meeting. I
wouldn't be able to get a phone call returned," he said.
"There's no way I could get a deal."