Congressman Duke Cunningham is in big trouble. Just yesterday, federal prosecutors declared that Rep. Cunningham “demanded and received” a bribe from the military contractor MZM in 2003 in return for millions of dollars in government contracts. If Cunningham doesn’t find a way to clear his name, he could be trading in his pinstripes for prison stripes.

This whole hullabaloo started when the San Diego Union Tribune reported that Rep. Cunningham, an eight-term Republican lawmaker who sits on the powerful Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, sold his California house to MZM president Mitchell Wade in 2003 for the inflated price of $1.675 million. (Wade never lived in the house, and sold it nine months later for a $700,000 loss.) The plot thickened when it was revealed that Cunningham’s Washington residence is Wade’s boat, a 42-foot yacht appropriately named the Duke Stir. The situation boiled over in June when the FBI raided Cunningham’s home.

It’s been clear for a while now that Cunningham’s political career is toast. The writing was already on the wall when Cunningham announced last month that he wouldn’t seek reelection – local politicians were already lining up for a shot at Cunningham’s seat. And with federal investigators closing in on all sides, Cunningham’s retirement prospects don’t look so rosy anymore either. Just last week, it was announced that the FBI raided another defense contractor with cozy ties to Cunningham. Before all this is over, Cunningham’s going to have a lot to answer for.

Cunningham crossed the line when he engineered a windfall profit by breaking the law, but dirty politics isn’t out of the ordinary in Washington. Defense companies have long realized that the best way to boost profits is to steer contributions into lawmakers’ campaign coffers, because politicians will do just about anything for some campaign cash. One has to wonder whether the only unusual thing about the Cunningham drama is that he got caught.

Taxpayers are the big losers in these Washington power plays. Every year, the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee steers billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded contracts to defense companies; many of these contracts aren’t awarded on a competitive basis, and many of them are doled out by lawmakers to the companies who have bankrolled their political careers. These legal kickbacks have become so common on Capitol Hill that the media rarely bothers to report on them anymore.

But there’s a good moral to this story: crime doesn’t pay. Thanks to his greed, Duke Cunningham’s political career is in tatters; MZM’s biggest and most lucrative government contract was cut off by the Pentagon in June, and now the company is being bought out. Hopefully, Cunningham’s story will send a message to lawmakers everywhere: if you fleece taxpayers for too long, you’re bound to get burned.