Smoking emails in corruption investigation into NV governor

The Republican governor of Nevada is under investigation by the FBI for accepting payments from a software company in exchange for awarding military contracts when he represented the state in Congress, AP reports.

A federal law enforcement official confirmed the probe and said the agency is loooking at what role Gibbons played in awarding contracts to eTreppid Technologies and whether he received any gifts in exchange.

eTreppid owner Warren Trepp is a longtime friend of Gibbons' who contributed $100,000 to his campaign. The FBI has obtained emails that seem to qualify as electronic smoking guns.

"Please don't forget to bring the money you promised Jim and Dawn," Trepp's wife, Jale Trepp, said in a March 22, 2005, e-mail days before Trepp and his wife embarked on the Caribbean cruise with Jim Gibbons and his wife, Dawn, a former Nevada state assemblywoman.

According to the Journal, Trepp responded minutes later saying: "Don't you ever send this kind of message to me! Erase this message from your computer right now!"

Gibbons, then a member of the House Intelligence and Armed Services committees, did not disclose the cruise and travel on Trepp's leased private jet, as required by House ethics rules. He later asked the House Ethics Committee for an exemption, but left office before any action was taken.