CIA and White House block Cunningham investigation

The Duke Cunningham scandal, which reaches into the Central Intelligence Agency due to contracts awarded for intelligence-related contracts, has been stalled due to CIA refusal to cooperate with DoJ prosecutors.

And now the White House has asked San Diego U.S. Attorney Carole Lam to resign.

There's still a lot of federal corruption that needs to be cleaned up, but it looks like the big fish are being protected from the top.

Wikipedia has some good entries on Dusty Foggo of the CIA, his pal and contractor/Cunningham briber Brent Wilkes, California Rep. Jerry Lewis, and former CIA Director Porter Goss.

UPDATE (January 17, 2007): San Diego U.S. Attorney Carole Lam has resigned. And, due to a provision in the USA PATRIOT Act (inserted by Sen. Arlen Specter), the Attorney General has the right to appoint replacement U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval. Previously the AG could only appoint interim U.S. Attorneys that had to be confirmed within 120 days or be subject to replacement by the relevant federal district court.

UPDATE (February 13, 2007): Foggo and Wilkes were both indicted today on charges of money laundering and "honest services wire fraud."