Randall Harold "Duke" Cunningham (born December 8, 1941) is an American former politician, Vietnam War veteran and fighter ace.

[4][5] Cunningham resigned from the House on November 28, 2005, after pleading guilty to accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes and under-reporting his taxable income for 2004.

He was hired as a physical education teacher and swimming coach at Hinsdale Central High School, where he stayed for one year.

[10] During his service, Cunningham and his Navigator/Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) "Irish" Driscoll became the only Navy aces in the Vietnam War, flying an F-4 Phantom II from aboard aircraft carrier USS Constellation (CV-64).

He and Driscoll recorded five aerial victories against North Vietnamese MiG-21 and MiG-17 aircraft between January and May 1972, including three kills in one flight (earning them the Navy Cross).

[11] While returning to the carrier after the final shoot-down, Cunningham and Driscoll were forced to eject from their F-4 over water near Nam Dinh after the aircraft was fatally damaged by a SA-2 surface-to-air missile, but they were rescued by Navy helicopter.

[citation needed] After returning to the US from Vietnam in 1972, Cunningham became an instructor at the US Navy's Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN) at Naval Air Station Miramar in San Diego.

In 1987, he was featured on the PBS broadcast of the NOVA special "Top Gun And Beyond", during which he recounted his engagement with the North Vietnamese fighter pilot thought to be the mythical "Colonel Toon".

He won by just one percentage point, giving Republicans full representation of the San Diego area for only the second time since the city was split into two districts after the 1960 census.

The new district included the home of Bill Lowery, a fellow Republican who had represented most of the other side of San Diego for the past 12 years.

For example: Cunningham said that "I cut my own rudder" on issues,[12] He was often compared by liberal interest groups to former congressman Bob Dornan; both were former military pilots, and both spoke out against perceived enemies.

In 1992, Cunningham, along with Dornan and fellow San Diego Republican Duncan L. Hunter, challenged the patriotism of then-Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton before a near-empty House chamber, but still viewed by C-SPAN viewers.

Cunningham co-sponsored, along with Democrat John Murtha, the so-called "Flag Desecration Amendment", which would add the following sentence to the Constitution of the United States: The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the Flag of the United States.The proposed amendment has passed the House many times, but narrowly missed the requisite 2/3 majority vote for passage in the Senate.

In June 2005, a story appeared in the San Diego Union Tribune by Marcus Stern and Jerry Kammer, who later received a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting.

[26] Besides Wade, the three other co-conspirators were: Brent R. Wilkes, founder of San Diego–based ADCS Inc.; New York businessman Thomas Kontogiannis; and John T. Michael, Kontogiannis' nephew and the owner of a New York–based mortgage company, Coastal Capital Corp. Property records show the company made $1.15 million in real estate loans to Cunningham, two of which were used in the purchase of his Rancho Santa Fe mansion.

[27] In 1997, Cunningham had pushed the Pentagon into buying a $20 million document-digitization system created by ADCS Inc., one of several defense companies owned by Wilkes.

[28] Cunningham was also criticized for selling merchandise on his personal website,[29] such as a $595 Buck knife featuring the official Congressional seal.

Among the many bribes Cunningham admitted receiving was the sale of his home in Del Mar at an inflated price, the free use of the yacht "Duke Stir," a used Rolls-Royce, antique furniture, Persian rugs, jewelry, and a $2,000 contribution for his daughter's college graduation party.

As part of his guilty plea, Cunningham agreed to forfeit his $2.55 million home in Rancho Santa Fe, which he bought with the proceeds of the sale of the Del Mar house.

Cunningham initially tried to sell the Rancho Santa Fe house, but federal prosecutors moved to block the sale after finding evidence it was purchased with Wade's money.

Also as part of the plea agreement, Cunningham agreed to help the government in its prosecution of others involved in the defense contractor bribery scandal.

[38][39] Judge Burns cited his military service in Vietnam, age and health as the reason the full ten years was not imposed.

[41] Cunningham was incarcerated in the minimum security satellite camp at the U.S. Penitentiary at Tucson, Arizona[42] with a scheduled release date of June 4, 2013.

[46] In June 2010, Cunningham submitted a handwritten three-page letter to sentencing Judge Larry Burns, complaining that the IRS was 'killing' him by seizing all his remaining savings and his Congressional and Navy pensions, penalties he feels were not warranted under his plea agreement.

[47] In April 2011, Cunningham sent a ten-page typewritten document pleading his case to USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, Talking Points Memo and San Diego CityBeat.

[53] Cunningham received a pardon from President Donald Trump on January 13, 2021, conditioned on his payment of penalties of restitution and forfeiture totaling $3,655,539.50.

[56] Francine Busby, Cunningham's Democratic challenger in 2004 and the Democratic candidate for the 50th District in the runoff election to fill Cunningham's vacancy, called November 28 "a sad day for the people" and called for support for her proposed ethics reform bill, the "Clean House Act", saying that "our government in Washington is broken.

"[57] In an editorial on November 29, The Washington Post called the Cunningham affair "the most brazen bribery conspiracy in modern congressional history".

[58] Later that day, President George W. Bush called Cunningham's actions "outrageous" at a press briefing in El Paso, Texas.

[35] House Speaker Dennis Hastert said in a December 6 statement that Cunningham was a "war hero"; but that he broke "the public trust he has built through his military and congressional career".