Knight-Ridder ties together the Duke Cunningham scandal with the controversy over the Pentagon’s Joint Counter-Intelligence Field Activity’s (CIFA) spying on anti-war activists.

A Pentagon intelligence agency that kept files on American anti-war activists hired one of the contractors who bribed former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., to help it collect data on houses of worship, schools, power plants and other locations in the United States.

MZM Inc., headed by Mitchell Wade, also received three contracts totaling more than $250,000 to provide unspecified “intelligence services” to the White House, according to documents obtained by Knight Ridder. The White House didn’t respond to an inquiry about what those intelligence services entailed.

Via TPM Cafe, you can see more on Mitchell Wade.

…Wade pled to a four-count information, including one count of conspiring both to bribe Congressman Randall “Duke” Cunningham and to tax evasion; one count of Use of Interstate Facilities to Promote Bribery; one count of conspiring to deprive the Defense Department of the honest services of its employees; and one count of election fraud.

According to the government’s evidence, Wade grew his company, MZM, into a defense contracting company that, since 2002, received over $150 million in Department of Defense government contracts by engaging in a series of corrupt acts throughout the defense procurement process: from ensuring that the members of Congress who could appropriate funds for special Defense Department projects looked favorably on MZM, to the Department of Defense officials — some of whom Wade knew when he was a government official — who could give him favorable reviews and inside information to ensure that the work would continue to flow.

Wade was able to exploit the procurement system in three distinct ways: by bribing a sitting United States Congressman; by conspiring to give favors to Department of Defense officials responsible for procuring services from Wade’s company; and by funneling illegal campaign contributions to two Members of Congress.

So, the government gave this crook $150 million to help them to advise on collecting information on churches, and mosques, and peace activists. Brilliant.