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[Botnst]

If guilty, burn him!

B

Alaska Senator Is Indicted on Corruption Charges

By DAVID STOUT and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: July 30, 2008

WASHINGTON — Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, the longest-serving Republican senator in United States history and a figure of great influence in Washington as well as in his home state, has been indicted on federal corruption charges.

Mr. Stevens, 84, was indicted on seven counts of falsely reporting income. The charges are related to renovations on his home and to gifts he has received. They arise from an investigation that has been under way for more than a year, in connection with the senator’s relationship with a businessman who oversaw the home-remodeling project.

The indictment will surely reverberate through the November elections. Mr. Stevens, who has been in the Senate for 40 years, is up for re-election this year. Mark Begich, a popular Democratic mayor of Anchorage, hopes to supplant him.

The Justice Department scheduled a news conference for Tuesday afternoon to announce the indictment.

Republicans on Capitol Hill were already jittery over a lobbying and influence-peddling scandal related to the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is now in prison. Mr. Stevens’s troubles are not linked to that affair. Instead, they stem from his ties to an oil executive whose company won millions of dollars in federal contracts with the help of Mr. Stevens, whose home in Alaska was almost doubled in size in the renovation project.

Mr. Stevens is a former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and he is still on the panel. As chairman, he wielded huge influence, and did not hesitate to use it to steer money and projects to his state.

“No other senator fills so central a place in his state’s public and economic life as Ted Stevens of Alaska,” the Almanac of American Politics says. “Quite possibly, no other senator ever has.”

Mr. Stevens, one of only a handful of World War II veterans left in the Senate, grew up in Indiana and California and moved to Alaska in 1950, before it was a state, according to the political almanac. He first ran for the Senate in 1962, losing to Ernest Gruening, a Democrat. He was appointed to fill a vacant seat in the Senate in 1968 by the governor at the time, Walter Hickel, and has been re-elected six times since then.

Word spread through the Capitol like an electric current, prompting whispers among senators and staff. The Democrats were gathering in a room near the Senate chamber for their weekly conference lunch. Republicans, meanwhile, moved their lunch to the headquarters of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, a common change of venue when the primary topic of discussion is politics.

Mr. Stevens is seen as a legendary, even heroic, figure in Alaska, who played a crucial role in its achievement of statehood, which became official in 1959. According to Senate Republican rules, Mr. Stevens will have to give up his leadership positions, which include some hugely powerful posts, as the senior Republican on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and the defense appropriations subcommittee.

The long-running federal corruption investigation in Alaska has been hanging over Mr. Stevens as he faces his toughest re-election context in many years. Mr. Begich was expected to mount a strong challenge even before word of the indictment spread.

Alaska, which last elected a Democratic senator in 1974, is one of several seemingly unlikely states where Democrats believe they have a strong chance of pulling off upset victories in the November elections.

The indictment comes nearly a year after federal agents raided Mr. Stevens’s home as part of a continuing investigation into corruption that had already ensnared the senator’s son, Ben Stevens, who was then president of the State Senate.

Though lawmakers have been aware of the Justice Department inquiry for some time, the news of an indictment still came as something of a shock this week, as both houses of Congress are trying to wrap up legislative business before the monthlong August recess.

Senator Daniel Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii, who is the chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee and a friend of Mr. Stevens, said that “he is innocent until proven guilty.” Mr. Inouye said he did not expect that the indictment would interfere with Senator Stevens’s ability to work in the Senate.

Other lawmakers, including Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, the chairwoman of the ethics committee, said they needed to know more about the indictment before commenting.

[LUVMBDiesels]

Timing is everything... This couldn't have waited until December? Or been done last year?

I do agree that if he is guilty he should go to prison, I just don't like the political aspect of indicting him now...

[dynalow]

That Bridge to Nowhere now goes to the Highway to Hell !!
Give my regards to Duke when you see him.

Fark 'em all.

[KarTek]

Is he the "ear mark" guy? One who wrangled millions to build a bridge to nowhere there in Alaska?

[PaulC]

I hope that free cherrywood wainscoting was worth it.

[Matt L]

Did any of those false statements involve tubes?

[450slcguy]

Originally Posted by LUVMBDiesels

Timing is everything... This couldn't have waited until December? Or been done last year?

I do agree that if he is guilty he should go to prison, I just don't like the political aspect of indicting him now...

Must be a republican POV.

[dynalow]

Originally Posted by 450slcguy

Must be a republican POV.

Prolly, but it shouldn't be overlooked that it was also a republican Justice Dept. that brought the charges against him.

[Botnst]

It's a corruption thing. Ask John (ABSCAM: I'll be back...) Murtha.

[MTI]

Hmm, was Murtha indicted? Convicted? Seems to me, he's one of those that Botnst likes to say are innocent until proven guilty, no?

[dynalow]

^^^ Ever so close he came to succumbing... and just a little bit smarter than Harrison Williams, one of the bigger fish caught and who, probably not coincidentially, was one of Jersey's finest..

[Hatterasguy]

Big shock, now go arrest everyone else.

Its funny how net worth rises very quickly once you get into office, regardless of their salary. You might even be able to turn that into an XY equation.

[LUVMBDiesels]

Originally Posted by 450slcguy

Must be a republican POV.

Actually no... I just don't like the timing of this. If they had evidence a year ago they should have acted then...


I mean beat they guy at the polls, don't knock him out of the race



I also hate the way the upstate NY congressmen mostly run UNOPPOSED.
Some democracy we have, huh...

[MBlovr]

Originally Posted by MTI

Hmm, was Murtha indicted? Convicted? Seems to me, he's one of those that Botnst likes to say are innocent until proven guilty, no?

Funny how that works huh

[450slcguy]

Originally Posted by LUVMBDiesels

Actually no... I just don't like the timing of this. If they had evidence a year ago they should have acted then...


I mean beat they guy at the polls, don't knock him out of the race

I don't equate what Stevens did (if guilty), to McCain. I really don't think it will affect the campaign.