We're gonna need a different boat.

And a lawyer. A good one.

By C. William Boyer

Randy "Duke" Cunningham [R] update:

Copley News Service

July 2, 2005

WASHINGTON – In a dramatic sign of a fast-moving, bicoastal investigation, federal agents searched the Rancho Santa Fe home of Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham yesterday, along with the Washington office of a defense contractor linked to the Republican congressman and the yacht where Cunningham had lived.

The federal task force that conducted the coordinated, surprise raids on opposite coasts included agents from the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, said Debbie Weierman, an FBI spokeswoman in Washington.

"The operation is part of an ongoing investigation," she said.

In Washington, federal agents questioned employees of the Capitol Yacht Club, here Wade's yacht, the Duke-Stir, is berthed. After Wade bought the yacht, he renamed it in an apparent play on Cunningham's nickname, placed it in a boat slip Cunningham had been leasing and made it available for Cunningham to live aboard while in Washington. Cunningham has defended the arrangement, saying he paid monthly dock fees and maintenance costs for the boat in lieu of rent.

Two weeks ago, The Reasonable Rant did a piece about Randy "Duke" Cunnigham's [R] little run-in with the law. Last we checked in on the Duke-stir, he was working on a 'comprehensive statement' about how the defense contractor to whom he sold his San Diego house, Michael Wade, could just two months later lose 700 grand in the turbo-charged California real estate market. Seems that 'comprehensive statement' (which, being the cynical skeptics we are, we call a LIE) wasn't good enough for the Feds. Ba-da-bing, the Duke-stir's got men with gun's busting down his door.

Lady Justice, you go girl!