Stevens: The Plot Thickens

by hilzoy

From the Washington Post:

"An Alaska oil contractor cooperated with the FBI by tape-recording phone calls with Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) as part of a public corruption investigation, a source familiar with the probe said last night.

The recordings done by former Veco Corp. chief executive Bill Allen mean that Stevens, who is the longest serving Republican in the Senate, was under scrutiny by the FBI much earlier than June, when the senator first acknowledged publicly that he was a subject of FBI inquiries.

Details about the recorded conversations between Allen and Stevens are unclear, including how many calls were taped, when they occurred and what information was gleaned from them. (...)

As part of its sprawling investigation into public corruption in Alaska, the FBI recorded thousands of conversations between Allen and another Veco executive, Rick Smith, and videotaped meetings between legislators and contractors at a hotel suite.

Allen admitted in testimony last week that he bribed three Alaska state lawmakers, including Stevens's son, former state Senate president Ben Stevens. The younger Stevens is also under scrutiny by the Justice Department.

Allen testified that the FBI promised not to indict his children if he cooperated with them. The deal was struck on Aug. 30, 2006, a day before agents conducted raids targeting Veco and half a dozen state legislators.

In addition to the work done on Ted Stevens's house, a former Veco employee testified last week that company workers helped run the U.S. senator's fundraisers while on company time, which might be in violation of campaign finance rules."

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Comments

[cleek]

maybe the Dems will make a deal with Stevens: he gets to stay, but has to vote Yea on a non-binding but sternly-worded criticism of Bush's handling of the Plame affair.

[Brett Bellmore]

Hopefully he'll get taken down, hard.

[OCSteve]

Hopefully he'll get taken down, hard.

Agreed. With no qualifications or resort to “that one’s just as bad”.

[Davebo]

Obviously this is a non-story since the Post hid it on page A-10.

I suppose we should be thankful it wasn't published in the style section.

[Gus]

My cup runneth over with schadenfreude!

[Pooh]

So in the last few months, bumper stickers have started appearing with the Alaskan flag as a backdrop and "Thank you, FBI!" overlayed.

There is still debate as to whether this is an honest statement, or meant satirically. Stevens is that important to the local economy that it's possible that people are honestly saying that 'we' are getting screwed (that said, &^$# him, the miserable bastard.)

[MobiusKlein]

Brett, you can't feed us a straight line like that.
One less comma and you've described the end of Larry Craig's career.