A sex scandal for the GOP?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Published December 6, 2005 3:53PM (EST)

The scandals now rocking the GOP have featured charges of corruption, bribery, insider trading, money laundering, obstructing justice, misusing intelligence and just about everything else you might imagine. Just about everything else . . . except sex.

Is that about to change?

The staff at the National Journal's Hotline seems to be seeing a sign. Deep in the San Diego Union-Tribune's coverage of lobbyist Brent Wilkes, who is "Co-Conspirator No. 1" in the criminal case that brought down Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the Hotline uncovers this nugget: Wilkes is said to have run a "hospitality suite with several bedrooms" in Washington, first at the Watergate and then at a hotel on Capitol Hill.

A hospitality suite with several bedrooms? Why might a lobbyist or his friends in Congress need such a thing? Or, as the Hotline puts it a little less subtly, "Who uses those bedrooms and for what?"

It reminds us of something CIA Chief Porter Goss said back when he was a lowly House member resisting efforts to investigate the outing of Valerie Plame: "Somebody sends me a blue dress and some DNA, I'll have an investigation." Be careful what you ask for.


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

MORE FROM Tim Grieve


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

War Room