Roll Call noted today that Senate Republicans are poised to hold a special, behind-closed-doors retreat this week, in which the GOP caucus will focus their attention on “rebranding” themselves.
It’s a tall order, especially given that old Culture of Corruption brand is still going strong.
Agents from the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service raided the Alaska home of Sen. Ted Stevens (R) yesterday as part of a broad federal investigation of political corruption in the state that has also swept up his son and one of his closest financial backers, officials said.
Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator in history, is under scrutiny from the Justice Department for his ties to an Alaska energy services company, Veco, whose chief executive pleaded guilty in early May to a bribery scheme involving state lawmakers.
Contractors have told a federal grand jury that in 2000, Veco executives oversaw a lavish remodeling of Stevens’s house in Girdwood, an exclusive ski resort area 40 miles from Anchorage, according to statements by the contractors.
To be sure, everyone deserves the presumption of innocence, but the details of this scandal look really bad for Stevens. Put it this way: this controversy will not only likely drive Stevens from the Senate, but may very well lead to Cunningham-like criminal charges.
It’s actually a pretty interesting story. A couple of months ago, two top executives at Veco, an oil-services company in Alaska, pled guilty to bribing at least five Alaska public officials, including state Senate President Ben Stevens, Ted Stevens’ son.
Seven years ago, Veco’s CEO, Bill Allen, contacted a local contractor about a major renovation project at Ted Stevens’ house. Veco, of course, was not in the business of residential construction or remodeling, so it seems kind of odd that the company’s CEO — the one who pled guilty to bribing elected officials in Alaska — would renovate the home of the chairman of the powerful U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee.
Wait, it gets better.
Contractors who worked on Stevens’s Girdwood home have told The Post and other media outlets that the remodeling project was overseen by Allen and other Veco executives. They said they provided evidence and testimony about it to a federal grand jury in Anchorage.
In addition, the Anchorage Daily News reported last month that a second grand jury was hearing testimony in Washington involving the Girdwood home project. The remodeling, which took place in 2000, involved putting the senator’s one-story house on stilts and building a new ground floor, making it two stories.
Veco has received more than $30 million in federal contracts since 2000, according to a database search of FedSpending.org, which tracks contracts given to private companies. The largest contracts were for logistical services provided to the National Science Foundation.
So, an oil company renovated a U.S. senator’s house, while the same oil company was bribing officials in Alaska. Shortly thereafter, wouldn’t you know it, the company was winning lucrative federal contracts.
And yesterday, Ted Stevens’ home was raided by two dozen FBI and the IRS agents.
Looks like the senator best known for his “bridge to nowhere” may be heading down the bridge to jail.