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TIME has learned that at least two of Beall's witnesses, Wolff and Matz, have accused Agnew of extorting campaign contributions from state and federal contractors in Maryland. Sources close to the investigation said that some of the rake-off methods were quite sophisticated, including one plan in which contractors favored with government business awarded fake bonuses to employees in the know, always being careful to deduct the proper withholding taxes, and then scooped them back for secret donations to politicians. The contractors in question worked on, among other things, state roads and two huge bridge-building projects in the Baltimore-Annapolis area: the parallel span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which opened last June and provides a second, four-mile-long bridge for traffic across the bay, and an interstate-highway bridge over Baltimore harbor. The two projects were financed by a $220 million bond issue approved by the state legislature in 1967, but both ran into multimillion-dollar cost overruns—an extra $40 million for the bay bridge alone. Consulting firm for both projects: J.E. Greiner Co., which is currently forbidden by the state department of transportation to work on public Maryland projects, largely because of complaints about the cost overruns on the bay span.
Another area being investigated involves rental contracts made by the General Services Administration on behalf of various federal agencies for office space. Such agreements are frequently reached without competitive bidding, and the political clout of landlords is a clearly understood part of the negotiating process. One such contractor with impeccably bipartisan connections is, of course, Rodgers, whose firms began doing business with the Federal Government under Lyndon Johnson and prospered even more under Nixon. Since 1967, Rodgers' companies have received a total of $19.6 million from the GSA, and last year they collected $5.7 million; some of his leases run until 1991. Rodgers has told TIME, however, that none of his dealings has been influenced by his fund-raising efforts for the Nixon Administration.
Since both Wolff and Matz, Agnew's primary accusers, are themselves believed to be deeply involved in the payoff scandal, they are presumably being forced by the Government into the position of being "willing to give up Agnew to save themselves," as one observer bluntly put it. Wolff was said to be especially anxious to make a deal and avoid being forced to testify under limited, or so-called "use" immunity.
Agnew argued that the credibility of such witnesses is open to serious question. "These accusations," he said, "are coming from those who have found themselves in very deep trouble and are seeking to extricate themselves from this trouble and are flirting with the idea that they can obtain immunity or reduced charges, perhaps, by doing so." Moreover, according to an observer familiar with the investigation, the Government's case "is based principally, up to now, on the witnesses' testimony." If the case should ever go to trial in that form—one man's word against that of two others—a Vice President of the U.S. would almost certainly appear to a jury more believable than his accusers.