What a day to be on the radio and away from my blog; Ted Stevens indicted on 7 counts!!!!

So I was on my regular Tuesday "Democratic Hour" on Cary Carrigan's Show, KUDO 1080, with Alaska Dem Leader Patti Higgins and we had just ended. Suddenly, producer Rishi Maharaj got a phone call saying that "Stevens" had been indicted. Rishi asked "Ben?" but the caller yelled "NO, TED!!!!"

None of us believed it.

Immediately afterwards, CNN top-of-the-hour news came on with, you guessed it, breaking news that Ted Stevens had been indicted!!

We were stunned.

Here is the FBI/DOJ press conference:



From CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska was indicted Tuesday on charges that he lied about receiving gifts worth more than $250,000 from an Alaska-based energy company on whose behalf he intervened in Washington.

The indictment, returned Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Washington, says the veteran lawmaker "schemed to conceal" the fact that Veco paid for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of work on his home.

The indictment follows a wide-ranging investigation into ties between the company and lawmakers in Alaska.

The indictment does not accuse Stevens of accepting bribes, Matt Friedrich, the acting assistant attorney general, emphasized in a news conference announcing the charges.

"Bribery is not charged in this case," he said, adding that such a charge "requires proof of a specific quid pro quo. This indictment does not allege that."

That is significant because bribery is very hard to prove. However, "making false statements on Federal documents" is one of the violations every new Federal employee is told that if proven would get them automatically fired, if not jailed and fined.

Think of it as Capone getting busted for tax evasion.

The Anchorage Daily News has the official documents on their website.

Per the ADN article:

With the felony indictment, Stevens, an icon in Alaska politics, becomes by far the most powerful politician charged in a broad investigation into corruption of Alaska public officials that began more than four years ago and that has so far led to convictions of three state legislators and charges against two others.

At a news conference in Washington today, Matthew Friedrich, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's criminal division, said Stevens would be allowed to turn himself in. Stevens' attorney, Brendan Sullivan of Washington, was notified of the indictment this morning, Friedrich said.

Reading the charges made me sad and angry at the same time.

I'm sad because this is a perfect example how power and money can corrupt a once great man--and I say that very seriously.

I'm angry because I remember when a co-worker (project manager) had become friends with one of the contractors working on one of his projects. The co-worker's truck "blew up" and he had no transport (in the middle of a messy divorce) so this contractor had an extra, really beat-up truck that she lent him. (I saw it--it ran--that was the extent of it.)

I think she lent it to him for no longer than a week.

Sure enough, they opened up a conflict-of-interest investigation that (of course) only turned up that she lent him the truck.

According to the charges, Ted Stevens has been receiving items like free remodeling on a home, a friggin' Land Rover, and a Viking grill from 1999 to 2006. These are just the things that we know of.

Questions I have asked (and have been answered):

1) Can Stevens resign from or can the Republicans pull him off the primary ballot? No.

2) If he wins the primary, can Stevens pull himself off the general election ballot? Yes, up to 48 days before the election.

3) Can the Republicans pull him off of the general election ballot if he doesn't want to go? The general consensus is "no" because the Alaska voters will have spoken in the primary. However, I haven't seen the related statute on that.

Question I have asked that no one can answer:

Is Ted Stevens the biggest fish or is there someone else out there?

**NOTE**

I turned on MSNBC to see their coverage on Stevens. Right now, they are friggin' "all earthquake, all the time"--busily covering a total non-event.

No real damage, no injuries...nothing friggin' happened.

So they are spending all of their time going from county to county talking about how nothing happened in each county and what services were not effected.

I want to scream.

Petty, Bitter, Mysogynist--Yup, it's another McCain moment

"Senator McCain, Elizabeth Holmes with the Wall Street Journal"

**McCain turns away**

McCain: "Who else has a question?"


At least he didn't use the "C" word this time!

Chuck Kopp resigns effective immediately

Per KTUU 5:00 report breaking news: Kopp resigns on his own "for the good of the Department of Public Safety."

More at 6:00 PM report and the press release should be out any second...we hope...

Per ADN:

In a brief news conference with Gov. Sarah Palin in her Anchorage office late this afternoon, Kopp said he was stepping down effective immediately. Kopp, appointed to replace former Commissioner Walt Monegan 10 days ago, said recent scrutiny of a 2005 sexual harassment complaint has been too hard on his family.

Neither Kopp nor the governor would answer questions.

"We're going to move forward now," Palin said. "This has been brutal on a good family."

No replacement has been announced.

I'll bet...not for awhile...

This is the part I love:

"The recent media firestorm has been detrimental to the Department of Public Safety mission, the citizens of Alaska and my family," Kopp said. "While I have been portrayed in a negative light, my personal worth is now in the person of Jesus Christ."

Yeah, it's always a good idea to bring Jesus into these things.

Perhaps the fact that media folks and bloggers like myself have been getting all kinds of emails and comments had something to do with this? Perhaps we were calling and emailing the right people and it was only a matter of time before someone went on the record with information proving that you lied through that entire previous press conference on the nature of your harassment? Perhaps the idea of a FOIA requesting access to all of your non-case-related phone conversations with dispatchers (which are recorded) made you nervous about big trouble down the road?

Perhaps the reason you resigned wasn't because of the "media firestorm" that YOU created, but because there were more chickens that were about to roost on top of the other ones?

Buh bye...don't let the door hit ya--well, you know the rest...

***UPDATE***

HERE is the raw feed of Kopp's statement at the press conference.

HERE is the raw feed of the Governor's statement.

**BREAKING:** Anticipating Kopp's possible departure via a Governor's "push"

***UPDATE***

Per Alaska Politics Blog:

Gov. Sarah Palin has been meeting with Public Safety Commissioner Chuck Kopp today and plans to hold a news conference this afternoon, her spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said.

Leighow would not disclose what the two have been talking about or what the governor will say at the news conference, including whether Palin plans on firing the state's top cop.

We're all just waiting for a press release because Sharon Leighow has not announced a time or a place for the press conference. I talked to KTVA and Megan Holland at the ADN--neither one of them knew where the press conference was. (In other words, only people who are personally invited will be there--people who won't ask questions...allegedly...)


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The same thing was happening to me right before Andrew Halcro talked to Mike Wooten for four hours. Folks were telling me everything that proved to be true, but they gave me no proof so I couldn't print it.

This time, this information is all about Chuck Kopp and claims that there is much more to the story...and more folks involved. One person even named a name (I deleted it from the comments).

I'm following up on what I can, including looking into submitting a FOIA request. I really am not invested in "breaking stories" but I will if folks will give me the information with that intent. However, I'm also making a request. If there is someone who REALLY knows something out there with proof, break the story to SOMEONE...ANYONE you feel comfortable with. If half of this stuff is actually true, folks REALLY need to know and I don't care who breaks it.

The Press Conference and the huge stack-o-papers

*******UPDATE******

Thank God, KTVA did the scanning for us!

- Memorandum of Findings
- Memo of Complaint
- Transcription of Mike Wooten Interview
- Transcription of Sarah Palin Interview (1)
- Transcription of Sarah Palin Interview (2) 8/18/2005
- Memo Re: Suspension
- Sarah Palin email to Col. Julia Grimes

Photo: PSEA Executive Director John Cyr

"My purpose here is not to substantiate who did what or what happened. Officer Wooten has asked that we release the records around that investigation so that the press can take an open and honest look at what happened and you may draw your own conclusions."--John Cyr

The conference started out with an abundance of information...they gave us a huge stack-o-papers (about two inches) of all the complaints and investigations having to do with Mike Wooten...released by request of Mike Wooten. I've been reading them in parking lots, parked in the street, all over.

John Cyr also made it clear that this was about Mike Wooten. He was not going to discuss anything to do with Walt Monegan.

I'm not going to delve into all of the mostly "unfounded" (investigated and found to be not true) or "not substantiated" (investigated and can't be proven) charges. The best summary I can give is of the ones that were substantiated. However, a personal note: 1) the Heath Clan has a lot of involvement in this when (in my opinion) they have no business being there. 2) Mike Wooten is not perfect and in some instances is not the sharpest crayon in the box. He also has bad taste in mistresses (yes, there was infidelity involved...surprise! Can't have a woman/family scorned without infidelity!) 3) It seems that the family members may be using that lack-of-sharpness against him.

The charges that were substantiated:

- Molly Heath McCann's son from her previous marriage, Payton, was the "witness" who accused his step-father of drinking while driving. (The other "witnesses" were long time friends of the Heaths, Adrian and Marilyn Lane. Their testimony was rejected by the investigator because of that conflict of interest, but his decision was overthrown by retired Colonel Julia Grimes, who found them credible. It's good to note that Grimes was also the recipient of the email from Palin which had a "between-us-girls-I'm-gonna-make-your-life-difficult" feel.)

Amazingly, no one said anything at the time and this all came up when there was a custody fight.

- Payton was also the 10-year-old boy "dry tasered" by Wooten. To be clear, Wooten was an idiot to do this no matter what. However, his version of the event is that 10-year-old Payton wanted him to do it because he wanted to see what it was like...and that, as someone who trains people in the use of tasers, Wooten knew what he was doing. (He also should have known better.) The boy denied asking him to do it and Molly's version of events is worthy of a movie on the Lifetime Network.

- Sarah Palin's email stated that in Sept. 2003 Wooten illegally shot a cow moose. Wooten admits it and his story was that Molly begged him to come with her so they could "shut her father up" who wouldn't stop giving her a hard time because she hadn't used her tag. When they went out, the only hunting gun they had was his and when he asked her to shoot it, she didn't want to and wanted him to do it. He did, he brought it back where he and Chuck Heath (father-in-law) butchered it. Wooten took it to get it processed and the meat was shared with the Heath family. Two years later, they suddenly remembered it was illegal.

Again, it was stupid...very, very stupid. However, in his defense, many Alaskan married couples who do any kind of fishing or hunting have broken the law. We have because my arthritis makes it impossible to haul in a halibut by myself and my husband helps me...OK, a lot. I know it doesn't make ANY of it right and he has to maintain a higher standard because of his position...but COME ON!

The packet contains 270 pages of documents involved in this investigation. John Cyr explained that it was only partial...he showed us that he couldn't give the whole file to us as he held up two huge white binders. I'm going to try and scan some of it tomorrow...especially the email from pre-Governor Sarah Palin in 2005 to retired Colonel Julia Grimes.

(Note: In all of the craziness today, I never did thank the lovely Myster from "Own the Sidwalk" for alerting me to the post on Andrew Halcro's blog. I never would have made it to the press conference in time if she hadn't. Thank you, oh brilliant and fashionable one!)

Press Event: Introducing Chuck Kopp as the new Commissioner of Public Safety

Yours truly on the right (photo courtesy of The Department of Public Safety)

I went to the State Trooper's building today for the "press availability" event (Megan Peters corrected me when I called it a "press conference") at 1:00. He talked about looking forward to working with the Legislature, being an advocate for the Troopers and focusing on recruitment, moving forward with improvements in Rural Alaska, including reducing substance abuse. He gave pretty much the standard spiel and definitely no "new agenda."

Then the first question came:

Corey Allen Young, Channel 11--"I'd just like to get your side of the story regarding the sexual harassment allegations made."

Commissioner Kopp--"[There has] never been a sexual harassment allegation that resulted in a lawsuit or a settlement by the City of Kenai. There is nothing in my record that would give me a black eye or would hinder me in my roll as Commissioner of Public Safety."

Then a follow up from Channel 11, then a similar question from Channel 13.

Commissioner Kopp: "There is no personal settlement there is no public settlement as in there is nothing in the record."

**raised eyebrow**

Channel 11 and 13--more questions

Commissioner Kopp--"There is one that has happened, period," said Kopp. "But I don't want to comment on that. There is absolutely nothing in my record that I am ashamed of. There is no skeletons in my closet. There is no monster looming to crawl out to say, 'Did this happen?'"

Public Safety Commissioner Chuck Kopp speaks to the press (photo courtesy of The Department of Public Safety)

The back story per channel 11's website:

While no lawsuit or settlement came from the sexual harassment complaint, we do know one was made; and so did Governor Palin before she appointed Kopp, Alaska's top cop.

The governor's office said there was no substance to the complaint filed three years ago and Commissioner Kopp continues to have her full support. After being pressed on the issue several times, Kopp did admit to the complaint...

...CBS 11 News is in contact with the woman who filed the complaint and she wants to tell her side of the story, but doesn't want to do that until she can talk to her attorney. He is not going to be back in town until later this week.

Megan Peters jumped in and said this is about "talking about the future of DPS and where we are headed."

K...let's ask a "future" question.

So I asked "The reason [given] for Walt Monegan's firing was so that they could go 'in a new direction' so I wanted to know specifically what you wanted to do differently than Walt Monegan was doing."

Commissioner Kopp--"I'm not going to comment on prior leadership or the circumstances there. I'm just going to move forward with a positive focus. I've talked about recruitment and retention, talking about improving the working conditions for the employees of the Department of Public Safety, looking at being accountable and responsive in all our Divisions to the people of Alaska as we execute our mission.

Me--"I was wondering what was new about this direction?"

Kopp--"We're building on the good things of the past and we are looking forward to further refining our approach, our fiscal responsibility, our accountability. We're looking forward to moving forward and having a credible (*muffled*) policy."

Corey from Channel 11 pointed out that this was all the same things the Governor has been saying and that Walt Monegan has been saying. He asked for more specifics on recruitment and...again...we heard some of the same things we've been hearing--that we have to target people with an "adventurous spirit" who want to live in Rural Alaska.

I have heard good things from others about Chuck Kopp and though I wonder how he'll handle 800 state employees vs. the 30 he dealt with in Kenai, he probably deserves a chance...if he can handle this "sexual harassment" issue better than he did today.

However, I left the press room thinking less about Chuck Kopp and wondering more about Walt Monegan and why that change was needed?