It's a cliché: what a difference a Democratic congressional majority makes. The U.S. attorney scandal, Walter Reed, the suppression of global warming data, the FBI's misuse of national security letters—Democratic legislators have been demanding documents, testimony and answers. Given that they now hold the purse strings and can shoot out subpoenas, the Democrats can no longer be ignored by the White House, executive agencies and the media. Representative Henry Waxman, the relentless Democratic chairman of the government oversight and reform committee, has been leading the pack in investigating allegations of administration wrongdoing. There's a lot for Waxman to cover, and he's being thorough. Consider the letter he sent the White House on March 27.

In that note to Joshua Bolten, President Bush's chief of staff, Waxman requested information about a $140,000 contract the White House awarded in July 2002 to MZM, Inc. This was Mitchell Wade's company. He's the (now former) military contractor who paid more than $1 million in bribes to Republican Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who's in jail for having accepted these and other bribes in return for steering federal contracts to Wade and Brent Wilkes, another defense contractor.

What's intriguing about the contract Wade received from the White House is that its amount equals the price Wade paid in August 2002 to buy the Duke-Stir, the yacht Cunningham lived on in Washington. According to the sentencing recommendation memo in Cunningham's case, Cunningham himself negotiated the $140,000 purchase price of the boat in the summer of 2002. This raises the intriguing possibility that Wade needed money to buy Cunningham the yacht and—presto—a White House contract materialized.

An investigation into the dealings of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., may implicate Defense Department and other agency officials who awarded contracts or were otherwise involved with funds channeled to corrupt contractors, according to a House inquiry.

The executive summary of an investigation by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was released Tuesday by ranking member Jane Harman, D-Calif. The summary offers insight into the findings of independent investigator, Special Counsel Michael Stern.

Stern was hired by Harman and committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., to examine the activities of Cunningham, who pleaded guilty last November to accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes from contractors. Mitchell Wade, the former president of government contractor MZM Inc., pleaded guilty in February to bribing Cunningham and corrupting Defense Department officials.

How secret earmarks and cowed staff let Duke Cunningham trade contracts for bribes.

Randy "Duke" Cunningham couldn''t have done it on his own. The California Republican, now serving time for taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors, was enabled in his criminality by a system that empowers members of key congressional committees to earmark funds for favored entities, by the secrecy surrounding intelligence spending, and by the compliance of congressional staff members and others who acceded to Mr. Cunningham''s spending demands despite their misgivings.

A devastating report -- actually, the devastating executive summary of a still-secret report -- by a special counsel to the House intelligence committee found that the corrupt congressman steered between $70 million and $80 million in government spending to defense contractors Mitchell J. Wade and Brent R. Wilkes. The public deserves to see the full 23-page unclassified version of the report, which has been ready since July. Even more, it deserves to know whether any of those complicit in Mr. Cunningham''s misdeeds will be disciplined and how such abuses will be prevented in the future.

Former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) channeled more than $70 million in Pentagon and intelligence agency contracts to two companies that paid him bribes, and required the "cooperation or at least the non-interference of many people" to pull that off, a congressional investigation has found.

Since Cunningham had no authority to award contracts, he needed the acquiescence of some members of Congress, congressional staff members and Defense Department officials, according to the executive summary of an investigation by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence into his activities as a panel member.

In the spring 2003 issue of the MZM newsletter, the Sentinel, Mitchell Wade extended prayers to American troops around the world and thanked his employees for supporting the troops in Iraq at this "perilous juncture." But MZM may have played a role in getting troops to Iraq, according to a national commission that investigated the intelligence failures that led to the war. The commission blamed the Pentagon's National Ground Intelligence Center (where Wade had analysts on contract through earmarks) that handled much of the military's prewar analysis of whether Saddam Hussein had developed nuclear precursor capabilities. The report didn't single out the MZM analysts but said that NGIC had "in particular displayed a disturbing lack of diligence and technical expertise."Separately, in March 2003, MZM received a $1.2 million contract to send a team of 21 Arabic linguists to Iraq to serve as interpreters and assist the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, which later became the Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA. Haig Melkessetian was one of the linguists and also served on the protective detail of the CPA head, Ambassador Paul Bremer. Melkessetian says that half the linguists Wade assigned to the project did not speak fluent Arabic, and one contractor was a Russian linguist who spoke no Arabic.

When Melkessetian - who has worked for U.S. military and intelligence agencies extensively in the Middle East - returned from Iraq, he talked to Wade about the growing counterinsurgency problems. "I sent you there to make money," Wade responded. "I didn't send you there to fix Iraq."

It started with the bribery indictment of California Rep Randall "Duke" Cunningham, but before it's over, a sprawling investigation into a Pentagon contractor called MZM could snare some of Washington's most powerful inside players...

In the fall of 2003, an influential Washington defense contractor named Mitchell Wade was shooting the bull with Haig Melkessetian, a senior executive in his company, at their elegant office not far from the White House. "Haig," Wade declared, "I have a good deal for us."

The contractor enthusiastically laid out his plan: His good friend, Randall "Duke" Cunningham, a decorated Vietnam War fighter pilot, was planning to lead a congressional delegation to Saudi Arabia on a mission to help Saudi officials improve their image in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Melkessetian, a former Army Special Forces soldier and Arabic linguist, was taken aback. "I can't be on both sides of the fence," he told Wade, noting that their company, MZM Inc., was heavily involved in major counterterrorism projects with the Defense Department.

"Don't start that ideological crap with me," Wade snapped, according to Melkessetian's account. "I'm not here for ideology. I'm here to make money."

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.