One of the reasons I'm so excited about our soon-to-be-launched Muckraking site is that I want to be able to dig into these stories in more depth, something that can be hard to do with one person. But for the moment, let me draw your attention to this piece that ran yesterday in The Hill about Cunningham-co-conspirator #1 Brent Wilkes and all his companies.

Brent Wilkes didn't just hire lots of lobbyists. He actually opened his own DC lobby shop, Group W Advisors. Group W hired Alexander Strategy Group, which, as The Hill rightly notes, is "a well-known conduit to Rep. Tom DeLay."

That's a string worth pulling, especially considering DeLay's other ties to Wilkes.

At some point we'll discuss how part of Jack Abramoff's downfall can be tied to feuding between the Abramoff faction of Team DeLay and the Ed Buckham faction centered on Alexander Strategy Group. The story has a lot to do with a fellow named Tony Rudy.