An open letter to Brent Wilkes, convicted briber of former GOP Rep. Randy Cunningham

Mr. Wilkes,

Now that you're out on appeal, it struck me that it was time to write this: I was told on several occasions by Deborah Jeane Palfrey (aka "The DC Madam") that you called her escort service, Pamela Martin & Associates. Ms. Palfrey informed me that you utilized Shirlington Limousine, owned by a shady individual named Christopher D. Baker to pick-up her escorts.

One of these escorts attempted to contact journalist Ken Silverstein to confirm this and other things, but Mr. Silverstein either lost his courage and fell on his sword, or he's telling the truth and his secretary lost the phone number. Had he bothered to isolate the day and time of the original call, he might have discovered who this former Pamela Martin escort was, but I assume like the rest of the media and our flabby journalistic class, he didn't want to know. Shame on him and you.

Ms. Palfrey probably wasn't able to establish your calls, although presumably they still exist, submerged, in her voluminous phone records that are still available online at this writing. I don't expect you to do the right thing--one would assume you wouldn't know what that is or what it entails, but a woman is dead, and you own a small piece of that.

Surely, it's a lost cause to ask or demand that you come forward to confirm these contentions of the deceased, but you should. It would behoove you and redeem you to help uncover a system of bribes-for-contracts in our nation. The short time you're going to serve--inside or outside, it doesn't matter in the end--is less important than the American people and the common good.

Journalist and editor of The Smoking Gun.com, Bill Bastone, grilled Ms. Palfrey in early October of 2006, accusing her of having connections to you and Randy Cunningham, the former-and-convicted GOP congressman whom you bribed--he was utterly convinced of it at that time and kept pushing the late Ms. Palfrey on this issue.

How would Bill Bastone have known this? It could have been leaked to him by federal prosecutors. I leave it to you and your counsel to weigh-out this information, because it could be an example of prosecutorial misconduct in your case and in the case of the deceased Ms. Palfrey. It's food for thought, and I'd consider its weight. You aren't the only one suffering under prosecutorial misconduct these days. The former governor of Alabama and Ms. Palfrey were recent victims.

regards, Matt Janovic, private researcher and writer