One of Sarah Palin's close political associates was found guilty today in federal court of corruption charges.
Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) was convicted of all 7 felony counts of making false statements by failing to report more than a quarter million dollars in improper gifts he received during much of the last decade. He'll be sentenced in February after his current term expires. Presumably he'll lose his re-election bid or otherwise be expelled from the Senate.
Stevens failed to report the gifts in his annual Senate disclosure forms. They included gifts Stevens accepted and used but which (just as Sarah Palin argued with regard to her $150,000 of free clothes) Stevens claimed he never actually wanted. Stevens also accepted $180,000 worth of renovation done to his house free of charge by the former CEO of VECO, a now defunct oil services company in Alaska. Stevens' defense was to blame his wife for "forgetting" to pay for the rebuilding of their house. All these things amounted to illegal gifts.
Stevens was a political patron of Sarah Palin long before she ran for governor. She continued to pal around with him right up until his indictment by the Justice Department this year. In particular, Palin helped organize a Stevens soft-money mill of dubious legality.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin began building clout in her state's political circles in part by serving as a director of an independent political group organized by the now embattled Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.
Palin's name is listed on 2003 incorporation papers of the "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.," a 527 group that could raise unlimited funds from corporate donors. The group was designed to serve as a political boot camp for Republican women in the state. She served as one of three directors until June 2005, when her name was replaced on state filings.
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Stevens had been helpful to Palin during her run for governor, swooping in with a last moment endorsement. And the two filmed a campaign commercial together to highlight Stevens's endorsement of Palin during the 2006 race.
Shortly after Palin was announced as McCain's vice presidential pick, the ad was removed from her gubernatorial campaign web site.
The McCain campaign's principle of guilt-by-association will no doubt require Sarah Palin to explain every detail of her long association with the criminal Stevens.
Update: Palin's statement this afternoon about Stevens' conviction said nothing about her long association with him. Palin did however seize on his conviction as an opportunity to praise herself for opposing the kind of corruption that her political patron Ted Stevens stands for:
"The verdict shines a light on the corrupting influence of the big oil service company up there in Alaska that was allowed to control too much of our state. And that control was part of the culture of corruption that I was elected to fight..."
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