more on the poway mafia

* laura has a new article up at Prospect about the Wilkes/CIA connection, and she points to a guy called Joel Combs who is the president of another Wilkes 'company' called Archer Logistics.

I had also been looking into Joel - he was one of 3 employees (plus Wilkes) at GroupW with Michael Mack. Laura has learnt that "Combs is a relative of Brent Wilkes" so that adds another little piece to the story. Interestingly, both Mack and Combs worked for the USPS during/after the anthrax attacks, so i had been assuming that is how they got to know each other...

When Mack was the Chair at the YRNF, he was also the publisher of the the official newsletter of the Young Republican National Federation. At the time, there were 6 Contributing Writers - Joel Combs was one of them. Another contributing writer was Derek L. Combs - State Chairman, Kentucky Young Republican Federation - and Montgomery County Republican Party State Chairman - i havent been able to ascertain if derek combs and joel combs are related, but given that Wilkes liked to spread the $ around using family, perhaps he deserves a closer look

The Archer Logistics website name was registered July 04. I'm not sure when the company was created - but I'd have to guess that it wasnt long before July 04. That's kinda interesting because Laura is suggesting that they are already getting CIA contracts.

Archer claims to be an "open source acquisition group" which "is uniquely positioned to execute rapid acquisition requests, provide immediate delivery channels and augment post-sales support." These aren't the types of qualities that you find in a start-up - especially with clients like U.S. Army, U.S. Marines, U.S. Navy, Department of State and the Department of Defense.

As with all the Wilkes Group websites, the Archer site doesnt offer very much information. They do claim that "Archer Logistics has also developed a unique delivery structure that can provide turnaround times of 24 hours in cases of extreme need." Unfortunately, nobody answers the telephone there - so i guess they can offer 24 hour help - but apparently the clock only starts ticking once you've been able to contact them...

laura also says:

"According to the Center for Responsive Politics, an organization that tracks political donations, Combs himself has, like Wilkes, given a sizeable amount of money over the years to politicians. (In 2004, he gave more than $12,000 to Cunningham, Representative Duncan Hunter, George W. Bush, ADCS's PAC, and the PAC of Representative John Doolittle, of the House Appropriations committee. A San Diego Reader article from 2000 estimates that Combs had given $25,000 to various politicians by the year 2000."

for some reason, Laura didnt look at the 2002 numbers which are even more interesting - Joel made $27k in donations in an off year - including $5k to DeLay's ARMPAC, and another thousand to DeLay directly, Dukestir's American Prosperity PAC got $5k, plus another $3k directly. i've also counted Joel giving $10k to 'ADCS Inc' - i suppose that it should read ADCS PAC - but i'm not in the business of making assumptions...

Laura used the Center for Responsive Politics to get donation stats for Combs - i cant vouch or otherwise for the accuracy of that site but i found another donation of his that wasnt at the CRP site: "Combs, J.G. (Self Employed/Lobbyist), $5000 to ALLIANCE FOR THE WEST on 06/28/04"

ALLIANCE FOR THE WEST is U.S. Senator Larry Craig. Combs loved to throw his money around in strange places. Doolittle is there of course, and BAYOU PAC and a bunch of others. The pattern might be obvious from the inside, but not from australia!

i'll have more soon.

did i tell you that there were 3 on the staff at Group W - joel, mack and a woman who used to work for slade gordon and recently got married to the local Poway Assemblyman. Apparently the Assemblyman was shocked, shocked to hear about Wilkes' corruption and promptly returned all of the money that he had received from his wife's company...

update for new visitors - see here and here for my earlier pieces about Michael Mack.

update: the cache of Melissa Dollaghan's resume can be seen here

"In Washington, D.C., she has served as Communications Director to San Diego Congressmen Ron Packard and Brian Bilbray and as Washington Senator Slade Gorton's press secretary and speechwriter."