Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, of the famous "bridge to nowhere," has been indicted according to Politico and the AP:
Stevens' Washington office is shut down right now and no one is answering phone calls, and a spokesman in Alaska declined to answer questions. The Associated Press is reporting that the criminal charges are related to false reporting of hundreds of thousands in renovations to his Alaska resort home. The indictment would be a stunning development in an extraordinary Senate career that has spanned four decades. Stevens is undoubtedly the most powerful politician in Alaska's 50 year history of statehood, but his relationships with contractors and lobbyists have come under intense scrutiny over the past year. Another member of the party of personal responsibility down for the count... from the AP, via the WaPo: Stevens, 84, has been dogged by a federal investigation into whether he pushed for fishing legislation that also benefited his son, an Alaska lobbyist. From May 1999 to August 2007, prosecutors said Stevens concealed "his continuing receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of things of value from a private corporation." The indictment released Tuesday said the items included: home improvements to his vacation home in Alaska, including a new first floor, garage, wraparound deck, plumbing, electrical wiring; as well as car exchanges, a Viking gas grill, furniture and tools. Justice Department officials were holding a news conference later Tuesday to discuss the charges.
More to come, to be sure. UPDATE: Stevens' charges are out, courtesy of a press conference earlier today:
Matthew Friedrich, acting assistant U.S. attorney general, said Tuesday that the government is charging the legislator with seven felony counts of making false statements between 1999 and 2006. Stevens was chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee from 1997 to 2005, except for the 18 months when Democrats controlled the chamber. The Justice Department is alleging that Stevens, who is 84, accepted gifts from oil-services company Veco in the form of material and labor to renovate his private residence in Alaska.
"These items were not disclosed" on Stevens' Senate financial-disclosure forms, according to Friedrich. ...
...The indictment alleged that Stevens received substantial home improvements to property he owns in Girdwood, Alaska; automobile exchanges in which the senator got new vehicles worth far more than the used vehicles he provided in return; and household goods. ...
... The indictment of Stevens is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation in Alaska. There have been seven criminal convictions to date from the investigation. Former Veco Chief Executive Bill Allen and Richard Smith, the company's former vice president of community affairs and government relations, pleaded guilty in May 2007 to providing more than $400,000 in corrupt payments to Alaska public officials.
As for Friedrich, I just heard on Randi Rhodes' show and confirmed for myself that he is "acting" because he replaced Alice Fisher, the U.S. attorney who cut the plea deal with Jack Abramoff in 2006, and who mysteriously left the Justice Department this May. More on Friedrich's background from a May 22 post on the Legal Times blog: A veteran prosecutor and top aide on criminal matters to Attorney General Michael Mukasey has been tapped to lead the Criminal Division at Main Justice. ...
... [Matthew] Friedrich is Fisher's former chief of staff and also was a principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division. Friedrich has served on the department's Enron task force and previously worked as one of the lead prosecutors in the Arthur Andersen case when he served in the Eastern District of Virginia. A former assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Texas, Friedrich joined the department as a Tax Division attorney in 1995.
Meanwhile, Fisher's May 1 departure came at an awkward time for the DOJ, as she was probing a number of big cases:
Her departure leaves the Justice Department even more short-staffed. Fisher is one of only four remaining division chiefs who have navigated the Senate confirmation process. Among the ongoing investigations Fisher has been overseeing are cases involving members of Congress and executives at mortgage companies caught up in the credit debacle.
Her prosecution of the Abramoff cases had raised some eyebrows, according to Sourcewatch: "I was more than a little tweaked to turn on CSPAN and see Alice Fisher giving the press conference on behalf of" the Justice Department in the Abramoff case, Jane Hamsher wrote January 4, 2006, in The Huffington Post. "Alice Fisher should have recused herself from this matter long ago," Hamsher said. "Fisher is a Republican who in her former job was registered as a lobbyist for HCA, the healthcare company founded by Bill Frist's father.
Her appointment was also controversial due to the fact that like her boss Abu Gonzales, Fisher has no trial experience and with [James] Comey gone there would be no senior member of the Justice Department who was an experienced criminal prosecutor. But Senatorial oversight was dispensed with and BushCo. continued on its Brownie-esque rampage to replace experience with cronyism."
And Fisher's lack of trial experience clearly came in handy for the Bush-Cheney team. She was one of the DOJ officials who reviewed and rubber stamped torture techniques for the White House. From an Andrew Sullivan post on Jane Mayer's new book, “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals": - The role of the torture lawyers in crafting the system is far more intimate than they have acknowledged. John Yoo, Michael Chertoff and Alice Fisher reviewed specific techniques which clearly amounted to torture and blessed them as fine to use, and then lied publicly and to Congress about their involvement. Yoo is said to have given his legal blessing to torture techniques and their application by DOD operatives on the squash court as he played rounds with Jim Haynes.
So we're likely well rid of her, and perhaps the wiser about why she suddenly vacated the premises. If she did indeed lie to Congress about her involvement in torture, all the Jack Abramoff prosecutions in the world might not have saved her from testifying, even at the Dems' sham hearings, and even though no one will likely ever be prosecuted for the various crimes committed by the current administration...
| Labels: corruption, politicians, Republicans, Ted Stevens |
