So here are the facts:

1. California Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham sold his house in Del Mar for $1.675 million. There was no listing.
2. The $1.675 million asking price was based on an estimate of local comparable houses. That estimate was prepared by Elizabeth Todd, a major campaign contributor to Rep. Cunningham.
3. The buyer was Mitchell Wade, a military contractor. (The contractor, MZM, Inc., did not buy the house directly -- MZM set up an LLC to purchase the house.)
4. Wade/MZM immediately put the house up for sale, at the same price as they bought it from Cunningham. There were no buyers.
5. After sitting on the market for 8 months, Wade sold the house at a $700,000 loss.
6. MZM is a campaign contributor to Cunningham, giving him $13,000 in the 2004 campaign.
7. MZM also benefited from Cunningham's support. "Cunningham, a member of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, which sets Pentagon outlays, acknowledges lending his support to Pentagon programs that benefited MZM. In particular, the congressman backed a top-secret program in human intelligence gathering that MZM profited from."

As Henry David Thoreau said, "some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."

Cunningham's response to all this? Why, invoke the Chewbacca Defense, of course!

In an interview Wednesday, Cunningham conceded that the circumstances surrounding the transaction could raise "fair" questions, but he insisted that the real estate deal was legitimate and independent of his efforts to help Wade win contracts.

"My whole life I've lived aboveboard," Cunningham said. "I've never even smoked a marijuana cigarette. I don't cheat. If a contractor buys me lunch and we meet a second time, I buy the lunch. My whole life has been aboveboard and so this doesn't worry me."

Later, he added, "The last thing I would do is get involved in something that, you know, is wrong. And I feel very confident that I haven't done anything wrong."

Because you know, I may have apparently accepted a $700K bribe, laundered through a real estate transaction, to influence the spending of military contracts -- but I'm not a pot smoker!

(His son, on the other hand...)

Talking Points Memo also has the story.

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