Which state's entire congressional delegation is under criminal investigation?

[Ninong]

And the winner is...

Alaska

Of course, Alaska has only one congressman and two senators -- all Republicans -- but all of them are currently under federal criminal investigation, according to the Wall Street Journal.

WASHINGTON -- A senior House Republican has come under criminal investigation in the Justice Department's widening inquiry into alleged influence-peddling and self-dealing in Congress.

Rep. Don Young of Alaska, the former chairman of the House Transportation Committee, now is the subject of a continuing criminal inquiry involving possible political favors for a company in Alaska, people close to the case said. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, the powerful former chairman of the Appropriations Committee and the longest-serving Senate Republican, is also now under criminal investigation, these people said.

Federal investigators are examining whether Rep. Young or Sen. Stevens accepted bribes, ...

I don't know if the article names Sen. Lisa Murkowski or not but I do know for a fact that she, too, is under federal criminal investigation right now. You might remember Lisa. Her daddy, former Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski, appointed her to a vacant U.S. Senate seat.

I don't think any state, including Louisiana, has ever had its entire congressional delegation sent off to prison at the same time before. Louisiana may hold the record for consecutive insurance commissioners sent to prison -- FIVE -- and we do have a former four-term governor doing 10 years right now and a U.S. Senator who "committed a very serious sin" in his past, but I don't think we've ever had everybody under investigation at the same time. Oh, I almost forgot to mention Rep. Bill Jefferson of New Orleans, the guy who was caught with $90,000 in cold hard cash (all marked bills) in his freezer. He says he can explain everything but not while the investigation is ongoing.

So anyway, let's give it up for Alaska!

Way to go, Alaska! Keep up the good work.

[Ninong]

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) has announced that she will sell the Kenai River lot she purchased from politically connected developer Bob Penney back in December 2006 for at least $100,000 below fair market value back to Penney, according to the Anchorage Daily News:

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said this morning that she and her husband intend to sell back their Kenai riverfront property to Anchorage businessman Bob Penney....

Murkowski told reporters in her Capitol office this morning that Penney, a real estate developer who does business in Alaska and Outside, has agreed to buy back the property for the $179,400 purchase price she and husband Verne Martell paid Dec. 22, 2006.

“While Verne and I intended to make this our family home and we paid a fair price for this land, no property is worth compromising the trust of the Alaska people,” Murkowski said in a written statement. “I cannot allow this to become a distraction from the major challenges faced in representing Alaska. So we have decided to sell this property back to Bob Penney at the same price for which it was purchased.”

Mr. Penney is a very close business associate of Alaska's other U.S. Senator, Ted Stevens. In fact, they own a racehorse together and Mr. Penney let Sen. Stevens in on a Utah land deal that turned the senator's $15,000 investment into a $100,000 gain in no time at all. Mr. Penney's a really nice guy. He loves his Alaska senators. He has contributed $10,500 to Lisa Murkowski's campaign over the years.

Some folks are even questioning if Lisa really put up the down payment on that lot. The mortgage was for $136,000. People up there in Alaska are asking if she really put up the difference between the mortgage and the extremely attractive selling price. Oh, well... That's all past history now that Lisa has decided to sell it back to Mr. Penney.

Nothing to see here, folks. Time to move on.



P.S. -- ABC News has more details on this story here.

[Ninong]

FBI and IRS are currently raiding Sen. Ted Stevens' house in Alaska!

Yep, the feds are closing in on Sen. Ted Stevens. You know it's not going to be a good day when you open the door and find a couple dozen federal agents standing there telling you they're here to search your home.

[Poseidon]

Geeze.... And here I thought Alaska was a great place to be! I have friends up there and they absolutely LOVE IT!

Actually Anchorage PD is recruiting in my area, maybe I should go sign up???

[Ninong]

Josh Marshall covered the situation with Sen. Ted Stevens in this 5-min video clip back on June 5, 2007. His son, Ben Stevens, who happens to be president of the state senate in Alaska, has already been named as a recipient of bribes in an indictment handed down a couple of months ago.

The president and the vice president of the huge Alaskan oil services company, VECO, have already pled guilty to bribing public officials. It appears that both Sen. Ted Stevens and his son, state Sen. Ben Stevens, were on the take.

In fact, from the looks of things, the entire Alaskan congressional delegation was on the take but they are all strong supporters of "family values," especially if their family benefits from the value of the bribes.

Greed On Parade

Grand Old Police blotter

P.S. -- Ted Stevens is the guy who wanted $300 million for a bridge to nowhere -- actually a bridge to an island with only 50 inhabitants. He's also the guy who once described the Internet as a "series of tubes" that were filling up.

[Ninong]

Anchorage Daily News has all the latest on the FBI/IRS raid

The FBI and IRS agents showed up at Sen. Ted Stevens house in Alaska around 11 a.m. yesterday. They didn't break in the front door. Since the person under investigation is a member of the United States Senate, they called a commercial locksmith to open the door for them. Some two dozen agents were still there at 9:30 p.m. last night.

[Ninong]

Stop dumping stuff on the Intertubes!

[Ninong]

Ben Stevens, son of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, was paid $715,000 for his part-time work for the 2001 Special Olympics World Winter Games Alaska.

More recently, Ben has been named in a deposition by the president of VECO, who has pleaded guilty to bribing public officials and admitted giving Ben more than $240,000 in bribes. This is the same company that is suspected of bribing Ben's father, Ted Stevens.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK) is also being investigated for alleged bribery by VECO. The bribes would be over and above the $212,380 VECO gave Young in campaign contributions since 1989.

[Ninong]

Oil Company's employees worked on Sen. Ted Stevens' home remodeling job.

Ex-Veco Corp. CEO Bill Allen admitted in court Friday that he had company employees work several months on a remodeling project at the Girdwood home of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens.

The former head of the oil field services company made the admission Friday while testifying in the federal corruption trial of a former state lawmaker.

Allen and former Veco vice president Rick Smith in May pleaded guilty to extortion, conspiracy and bribery of legislators.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney James Wendt, representing former state Rep. Pete Kott, Allen acknowledged that the more than $400,000 he admitted spending in the bribery charge was for other legislators - and for work done at the Girdwood home of Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate.

"I don't think there was a lot of materials," Allen said. "There was some labor."

The workers were Veco employees, probably one to four at a time, Allen said. He said the work on the home lasted for "probably a couple of months." Later, he said it might have been as much as six months.

Allen also said the plea agreement he signed admitted payments to Stevens' son Ben, whom Allen had hired as a consultant after Ben Stevens left college in 1995. The consulting work continued after Ben Stevens was appointed to the Alaska state Senate in 2002.

"It was $4,000 per month," Allen said.

Wendt closely questioned Allen whether the amount to the younger Stevens exceeded $200,000. Allen said the amount he paid Stevens before he was a state senator should not be counted.

"I don't think you can count that," he said.

Allen stepped down from his job as Veco chairman after his plea agreement. The sale of the company to CH2M Hill was completed last week.

Veco was one of the state's largest oil field services companies, with more than 4,000 employees. The company operated around the world but more than half its work was in Alaska, supporting the oil industry with service and maintenance contracts, according to Allen.

Allen for more than two decades was a behind-the-scenes political force, supplying campaign money to lawmakers sympathetic to the petroleum industry.

Over the past six years, Veco executives and the company itself contributed more than $119,000 to Ted Stevens' political organizations, according to tracking by Political Money Line, an Internet database. Of that amount, Allen contributed $20,000. Stevens and Allen also are longtime friends and partners in a race horse investment.

P.S. -- Allen is also implicated in bribing Rep. Don Young (R-AK).

[Ninong]

Oh, this is good! Really good!

It is being reported online that Bill Allen, the ex-CEO of VECO, who has admitted bribing at least four public officials in Alaska, cut a deal with the feds several months ago and agreed to continue with business as usual while they taped his phone conversations with public officials, including Sen. Ted Stevens and his son Ben, as well as Rep. Don Young. That information was confirmed with two different government sources who can't be named.

It seems the feds used tapes of conversations between Allen and Ted Stevens to get the judge to issue the search warrant on Stevens' Alaska home recently. That was when two dozen FBI and IRS agents showed up at his house in a surprise raid on July 30. They were there all day and they carted off boxes of stuff.

[Ninong]

Washington's most influential people in law, lobbying and advocacy

Brendan Sullivan. From Oliver North to the Duke lacrosse players, he’s the defendant’s choice among the white-collar set. “By the time somebody comes to me, they are pretty far up the creek,” Sullivan has said. “The good thing is they will pay almost anything.”



P.S. -- Brendan Sullivan is Sen. Ted Stevens' high-priced criminal defense attorney. It's his job to try to keep Stevens from becoming Randy "Duke" Cunningham's new roommate.

[Ninong]

Oh, this is good! Really good!

It is being reported online that Bill Allen, the ex-CEO of VECO, who has admitted bribing at least four public officials in Alaska, cut a deal with the feds several months ago and agreed to continue with business as usual while they taped his phone conversations with public officials, including Sen. Ted Stevens and his son Ben, as well as Rep. Don Young. That information was confirmed with two different government sources who can't be named.

It seems the feds used tapes of conversations between Allen and Ted Stevens to get the judge to issue the search warrant on Stevens' Alaska home recently. That was when two dozen FBI and IRS agents showed up at his house in a surprise raid on July 30. They were there all day and they carted off boxes of stuff.

Taping his phone conversations was only half of it...

The FBI also set up a hidden video camera in VECO CEO Bill Allen's office and video taped his meetings with various public officials over a period of several weeks.

This is my favorite story so far about some of the things they have on video tape:

A local public official visits Bill Allen and they get into a conversation about insomnia and erectile dysfunction. Allen gives the guy some Viagra pills and some sleeping pills. The FBI has this on video tape. A few days later, the guy calls Allen to complain that the Viagra doesn't work. It turns out he had been taking the sleeping pills thinking they were Viagra. This is on audio tape.

[Ninong]

PBS program, Now, has a 25-minute video clip "Oil, Politics & Bribes" on the GOP corruption in Alaska!

NOW shines a bright light on the scandalous connection between VECO Corporation—an Alaska-based oil services company—and Alaska's old-boy Republican network. Two state legislators have been convicted in Federal court for accepting bribes from VECO. The FBI has video and audio evidence that reveal VECO executives shockingly handing out cash to those legislators in exchange for promises to roll back a tax on the oil industry. But that may only be the tip of the oily iceberg. NOW's Maria Hinojosa learns that dozens more lawmakers are being eyed in the growing scandal, including one of the country's most powerful politicians, Alaska U.S. Senator Ted Stevens.

NOW investigates the bribes, the connections to Big Oil and the payoffs to obtain friendly tax policies.

You should check it out. It includes hidden camera footage the FBI used in the trials of the first three or four corrupt Republicans who have been convicted so far. According to statements made by law enforcement officials in that clip, there are dozens of politicians involved.

Apparently the FBI bugged a hotel room with video and audio equipment without the knowledge of the people using the room. The hotel room was used by the chairman and the president of VECO to meet with Republican members of the Alaskan state Senate and House of Representatives. The hotel was very close to the state capitol building, so it was a convenient meeting place. You can see various corrupt politicians accepting handfuls of cash from their oil industry masters and asking meekly if there is anything else they can do for them today.

Both the Republican Speaker of the House and the Republican President of the Senate (U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens' son, Ben) are mentioned by name as being on the "team" accepting bribes from the oil dudes. The reason I'm saying Republicans and not Democrats is because they make it clear in their conversations that they only support Republicans.

Bill Allen, former CEO of VECO, has testified at trial that the $250,000 he paid to Alaska state Senate President Ben Stevens in "consulting fees" was strictly a bribe. Ben is the son of Alaska's United States Senator Ted Stevens. VECO paid to raise Ted Stevens' home so that a first floor could be built, doubling the size of the house. That's the same house that the FBI and the IRS raided a couple of months ago, the first time a sitting United States Senator's home has been raided by federal authorities.

There's a cute segment showing Sen. Ted Stevens, Sen. Trent Lott, Sen. Larry Craig, former House Speaker Denny Hastert and other powerful Washington Republicans enjoying a fishing trip with Bill Allen, the convicted former CEO of VECO. Apparently he was paying off just about everybody from Juneau all the way to Washington, D.C.

They don't mention it in that 25-minute show but I believe it was after the FBI arrested Bill Allen and the president of his company, VECO, and showed them the hidden camera tapes that they copped a guilty plea and agreed to cooperate. The company has since been bought out by another company. The former chairman and former president were both convicted of bribing public officials but for several months after they they were nailed by the FBI, they cooperated and allowed their phones and their offices to be monitored by the FBI with video and audio equipment. Some of the details of those tapes have leaked, such as the episode where one of the politicians complained that the Viagra he was given didn't seem to have the desired effect. It turned out he was taking sleeping pills instead of Viagra.

P.S. -- Gov. Palin, a Republican, was elected last November on a platform to clean up the corruption in her own party. One of the first things she did was to ram through a 25% increase in the taxes the oil companies pay to the state.

[Ninong]

Anchorage Daily News Details Abramoff Contacts With Rep. Don Young (R-AK)

This paper has been on top of this story for a long time now. In a very lengthy, detailed article in yesterday's paper they connect all of the dots and itemize just exactly how many times Abramoff's firm had contacts with Rep. Don Young (R-AK), what topics were discussed and what help Young provided in return.

The records show that one of the looming concerns of Abramoff and his fellow lobbyists at the time was a bill introduced by Young's fellow Alaskan, Sen. Frank Murkowski, to reform labor and immigration practices feeding the island's notorious Chinese-owned sweatshops. In 2000, Murkowski's bill passed the Senate unanimously, but Young stopped it cold in his committee, refusing to hold even a hearing.

Young has denied taking that action or any other as a favor to Abramoff, now in a federal prison.

It is amazing how long it is taking for all these corrupt Republican lawmakers to be brought to justice. When Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was running things, he did everything in his power to delay these investigations, going so far as to fire U.S. Attorneys, reassign lead investigative attorneys, delay necessary approvals of investigative tools, and even shut down sections involved in investigations. Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) was finally indicted on 35 counts a couple of weeks ago but Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) and Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) are still out there.

There are a couple of Democrats under investigation but they are small potatoes compared to the number of high-ranking Republicans about to get sent to the big house. And all of these guys are using their campaign funds for their defense. That's why Tom DeLay waited until the last minute to announce that he wasn't going through with his hopeless reelection bid after all. He was raising beaucoup bucks for his campaign knowing that he had no intention of actually seeking reelection because he wanted the money for his criminal defense fund. Some of these guys have spent more than a million bucks on criminal defense lawyers.

[Ninong]

Corrupt Justice Dept. Under Alberto Gonzales

The deputy chief of staff of the Justice Department's criminal division is being charged in Abramoff probe.

Robert Coughlin was deputy chief of staff of the Justice Department's criminal division — the same division handling the Abramoff probe — before resigning a year ago, citing personal reasons. He was due in federal court in Washington on Tuesday for a plea hearing.

He is being charged with accepting "gifts" in exchange for doing favors for lobbyists. The deputy chief of staff in the criminal division of the Justice Department was in the pocket of Jack Abramoff.

Coughlin resigned from the Department of Justice April 6, 2007. A media report linked Coughlin's resignation to his friendship with Kevin A. Ring, who in turn has been linked in media reports to the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal. Coughlin's position in the Department of Justice placed him high in the chain of supervision of the staff investigating the scandal.

P.S. -- Coughlin stands accused of one felony count of federal conflict-of-interest violations. He was due in court today (Tuesday) to enter his plea deal, the deal he worked out with his former subordinates at the Justice Department.

A federal court filing submitted Monday says Robert Coughlin II, the former deputy chief of staff for the criminal division of the U.S. Department of Justice, gave "assistance to a lobbyist and the lobbyist's law/lobbying firm on particular matters before (the Justice Department) while" accepting gifts and considering a job offer, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

[Ninong]

"Guilty, your honor."

That's what Robert Coughlin said in a clear voice when Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle asked him how he would plead. He left court holding hands with his wife. He and his attorney declined comment on the way out.

Because of Coughlin's ties at Justice Department headquarters, prosecutors in Maryland investigated his conduct while reporting to the deputy attorney general's office in Washington.

As part of his plea, Coughlin agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their ongoing investigation.

[zhenya]

FBI and IRS are currently raiding Sen. Ted Stevens' house in Alaska!

Yep, the feds are closing in on Sen. Ted Stevens. You know it's not going to be a good day when you open the door and find a couple dozen federal agents standing there telling you they're here to search your home.

Well, it looks like the party is over for Mr.Stevens.
Ted Stevens indicted, longest-serving GOP senator - Yahoo! News

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said, "I've known Ted Stevens for 28 years, and have always known him to be impeccably honest." :eek3:
Mr.Specter is off his rocker...

[Ninong]

Gene,

Let us not forget that Senator Specter is a member of the Republican caucus that gave Senator David Vitter a "loud standing ovation" upon his return to the Senate GOP's regular Wednesday lunch. Loud. Standing. Ovation. Talk about "Family Values." What a bunch of hypocrites!

And these are the same guys who welcomed the likes of Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms with open arms. When Lyndon Johnson started pushing civil rights legislation, the bigots in the Democratic party bolted to the Republican party where they were welcomed with hugs and kisses. Trent Lott, who was a Democrat and an assistant to a Democratic congressman from Mississippi, changed his registration to Republican when he ran to succeed his former boss because he could see which way the wind was blowing in Mississippi at the time. Trent's own uncle was a honcho in the local White Citizens' Council.

Just last week, Liddy Dole had the unmitigated gall to propose naming an AIDS funding bill after the late Jesse Helms, who fought against funding AIDS bills his entire life. These people live in a world of their own. They are out of touch with reality.

As far as that idiot Ted Stevens is concerned, he wasn't going to be re-elected anyway. Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, a Democrat, was polling about 10 points above him in the polls for the past couple of months.


P.S. -- Jesse Helms was a Republican when he ran for the Senate in 1972 but he was a Democrat when he worked fon the segregationist presidential campaign of Georgia Senator Richard Russell. Before that Helms was campaign publicity director for segregationist Willis Smith in his 1950 senate campaign. Helms authored the campaign's slogan "Wake Up White People!"

Jesse Helms hasn't always been a Republican but he has always been a bigot. When he ran for the Senate in 1972 his campaign slogan was "Vote for Helms -- He's One of Us!" His opponent was Demoratic Congressman Nick Galifianakis, a Greek American.

[Ninong]

One down, two to go:

Sen. Ted Stevens Convicted on All 7 Counts!

WASHINGTON - Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted of corruption charges Monday in a trial that tainted the 40-year Senate career of Alaska's political patriarch.

Stevens, 84, was convicted of all seven charges he faced of lying about free home renovations and other gifts he received from a wealthy oil contractor. Jurors began deliberating Wednesday at noon.

Stevens faces up to five years in prison on each count when he is sentenced Jan. 26, but under federal sentencing guidelines, he is likely to receive much less prison time, if any.

[wgscott]

But he won re-election. The people have spoken.
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