Things get worse for Rep. Don Young (R-AK). The feds are chasing Young for his ties to the corrupt oil company Veco (among other things), and he's already blown $450,000 in campaign funds on criminal defense lawyers. But it looks like investigators pulled out all the stops.

FBI agents recorded former Veco president Rick Smith's phone calls with Young, the AP reports today. In September, the AP reported that Veco's CEO Bill Allen had recorded his calls with Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK).

Young was close to Smith in a couple ways. Smith, who pleaded guilty to bribing a number of lawmakers, arranged Young's annual mega-fundraiser pig roast (see picture above) at a cost of about $10,000 to $15,000 for a decade. But the feds are investigating whether there was another, shall we say, more informal arrangement, according to the AP:

The Justice Department is investigating whether an Alaska oil contractor used golf tournaments to funnel cash to Rep. Don Young, people close to the corruption investigation said....

...[T]he events at the Moose Run Golf Course just outside Anchorage were informal and the prizes were cash. There is no record of them on the campaign or personal financial reports that federal lawmakers are required to file.

"That tournament had nothing to do with the campaign or anything official. It was just people getting together to play golf," said Young's campaign spokesman, Mike Anderson, who declined to discuss the tournaments or how often Young won.

So was Young unusually lucky? It's unclear. The piece doesn't say how much cash Young took away, only saying that between sixteen to twenty-four people generally played in the tournament, each paying $100 each. But for some reason people tend to get suspicious when executives hand large amounts of cash to politicians.

Prosecutors scored their third conviction of a third former Alaska state lawmaker yesterday, nailing Vic Kohring on three of four counts. He was convicted of taking a couple thousand dollars in bribes from Veco executives and asking for $17,000 more (to pay off credit card debt due to health care bills).

Jurors were united in finding Kohring guilty -- and in not feeling good about it:

As they left the Federal Building, jurors looked drained but relieved after roughly nine hours of deliberations over two days. Only a few would talk. They said they anguished over their decision.

One, who declined to be identified other than as "juror No. 8," said "they didn't get the sharks. They got the minnow."

Most felt sorry for Kohring and saw him as "a very sympathetic figure," said Alan Rowe, juror No. 12.

The "sharks" in that metaphor, of course, would have to be the biggest fish in Alaska: Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and his son, Ben.

Here's some strange news coming out of the Alaska trial of former state Rep. Vic Kohring. It turns out that when former Veco CEO Bill Allen testified last month in a separate corruption trial about being blackmailed by his own nephew, the strong-arming was related to Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) suspect home renovation.

Allen was defensive on the stand that day, the Anchorage Daily News reported, combating questioning from defense attorneys that he actually threatened to kill his nephew:

Allen said he didn’t make such a threat. “Not me, no. I told them (him?) I’d beat the shit out of him,” Allen said.

Later, he said: “I never did say that I would kill him. No. I wouldn’t have done that … because his mother is my sister.”

Today Allen clarified while under cross-examination that his nephew was blackmailing him over “Ted Stevens’ house.” Just what his nephew was threatening to do (go to the feds?) is unclear.

Allen also testified again today that Veco paid for some of the renovations that doubled Stevens' home, but he didn’t know how much Veco spent.

Bad news for Ben Stevens. Another Veco executive testified in federal court to paying the one-time state Senate President, and son of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), $250,000 in bogus consulting fees.

Former Veco vice president Rick Smith's testimony came during the trial of state Rep. Vic Kohring (R-AK), accused of accepting bribes from Veco and unsuccessfully trying to get the company to pay off his $17,000 credit card debt. Veco's Bill Allen previously testified about the bogus consulting fees paid to Stevens, in yet another, earlier Alaska corruption trial.

Kohring's lawyers have long argued that their client was unfairly netted in an investigation shooting for the two Stevenses. One even told investigators they "dun got the wrong man." While the younger Stevens was paid nearly a quarter of a million dollars in monthly retainer fess for his lobbying services while in office, Kohring has been charged with accepting $2,600 in cash.

The FBI raided Ben Stevens' legislative office last year, but he has not been charged with a crime.

Maybe the corruption trial of former state legislator Rep. Vic Kohring (R-AK) is really a call for healthcare reform. Kohring learned the age-old HMO lesson (never, ever go out of network) the hard way and ended up begging Veco executives for cash when faced with collection agency calls.

Kohring says a spinal surgery in 2002 at the Mayo Clinic, which wasn't on his health plan's preferred provider list, set him back thousands of dollars. One credit card still had a $17,000 balance in March 2006. With collection agencies harassing him and his house, worth about $100,000, not selling, he approached Veco executives Bill Allen and Rick Smith with an idea. He would lobby other state lawmakers to support a piece of pipeline legislation in exchange for some cash. He never received the $17,000.

Kohring's lawyer has argued prosecutor's nabbed his small fish client when they should have been pursuing the big fish: Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and former state Senate President Ben Stevens. The lawyer, Wayne Anthony Ross, wrote in a letter to federal prosecutors: "You dun got the wrong man." Father and son Stevens, who are both under investigation for their connection to Veco, have not been officially accused of wrongdoing (yet), but Kohring is charged with accepting $2,600 in cash and lining up a Veco summer internship for his nephew worth $3,000.

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What's an FBI investigation between friends? Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) buddies in the Senate are standing by him.

And by standing by him, I mean contributing thousands of dollars to his re-election campaign, the AP reports.

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch led the way, donating $10,000 from his political action committee and another $4,000 from his campaign fund. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas and Kit Bond of Missouri each added $10,000 from their political action committees, according to campaign reports released Friday....

Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott's political action committee donated $5,000 and Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard's campaign chipped in $4,000. In all, the Stevens campaign raised more than $463,000 since July 1, making it one of the senator's most successful fundraising quarters.

Surprising? Probably not, considering a recent report from Marketplace radio that chronicles how two charities with ties to Stevens bring members of Congress to Alaska for lavish fishing tournaments. The trips would normally cost $1,000 a night, but thanks to the generosity of a series of PACs and non-profits backed by lobbyists, lawmakers don't spend a dime. The law also shields Stevens' campaign from having to disclose who attends.

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Now that two Veco executives have pleaded guilty to buying politicians, two former legislators have been convicted on bribery charges, two more lawmakers are awaiting trial and two thirds of the federal delegation is under FBI investigation, Alaska has decided maybe it should start looking into some of this corruption stuff.

But, too late.

Gov. Sarah Palin released a letter today from the Justice Department telling the state to drop its investigation into whether Veco paid for political polling, fearing the inquiry may interfere with the wide-ranging and ongoing federal probe. The letter is available here.

In her letter, Brenda Morris, deputy principal of the Public Integrity Section at the Justice Department, tried to let down Alaska's Attorney General Talis Colber easy:

We understand and appreciate that all levels of law enforcement - local, state and federal - have an interest in ensuring that government and its officials operate free of illegal influences. However, because of the long-standing federal investigation into these matters, we believe that concurrent state investigative activity will have the effect of compromising certain aspects of the ongoing federal public corruption investigation.

There's always next time, Alaska.

Marketplace radio's Steve Henn has a new angle to the Veco-Stevens scandal: the two men quietly paired up in 2002 to support the campaign of seven other Republican senators. Politicians often use their political action committees to purchase influence with members of their caucus, but Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) appears to have gone one step further. Veco CEO Bill Allen served in his proxy, echoing Stevens' leadership PAC contributions, buying the senior Republican senator clout on Veco's dime.

Here at TPMmuckraker we've painted the Alaska tale as a series of various cash-for-political favors incidents. But Henn describes a more complicated -- and telling -- relationship between Allen and Stevens. He noticed that in the summer of 2002, Veco executives poured $70,000 into seven Republican Senate challengers' campaign funds. The donations "closely mirrored cash gifts" from Steven's PAC.

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) and Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) are two good examples.

Working in concert, Ted Stevens, Bill Allen and VECO executives used half a dozen political committees to raise about $25,000 for Coleman's 2002 campaign, and $50,000 for Sununu's. Both Coleman and Sununu are running for reelection this year.

Here's a breakdown of the Veco-Stevens donations to Sununu, including a $25,000 donation from Veco to Stevens' PAC, which then made its way straight into the Sununua Victory Fund.

Stevens brought Sununu and Coleman even closer into his sphere of influence by inviting them up to Alaska for his annual salmon-habitat fundraiser and influence-swapping event, the Kenai River Classic, co-hosted by Bob Penney.

When other politicians fold and unload tainted contributions to charity, Rep. Don Young (R-AK) stands firm. He's hanging on to all his Veco donations, despite an emerging trend to dump the cash, the AP reports.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) has given away $18,000 he received from former Veco CEO Bill Allen and president Rick Smith. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) gave away $8,000 worth of Veco contributions. But they're not getting carried away. Both are holding on to Veco-employee contributions, Stevens' campaign keeping some $50,000 and Murkowski $33,000. It's a noteworthy point as both Allen and Smith have admitted to a reimbursement scheme where Veco gave "bonuses" to employees who made political donations. It turns out the "donations" were mostly mandatory.

Since Veco gives widely, a number of politicians outside of Alaska have said they have or will hand off the donations including Sen Kit Bond (R-MO) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). The National Republican Senatorial Committee gave some $25,000 it received from Allen to charity too. It's not quite the charity donation frenzy induced by Jack Abramoff's guilty plea back in January, 2006, but if the investigation continues to press on, who knows?

Two Democratic state legislators in Alaska wrote to three major oil companies today asking whether they were involved in Veco's bribe-laden lobbying effort last year on an oil tax law.

Former Veco CEO Bill Allen pleaded guilty to bribing officials to get a reduction in the tax rate for oil companies, hoping it would encourage them to build a lucrative pipeline. During the trial of former state Rep. Pete Kott (R-AK) last week, the prosecution played a tape of Allen telling ConocoPhillips President Jim Bowles about the lobbying effort. On the tape, Allen is heard saying, "Hey Jim, I told you we would-between-with Pete Kott and Ben we wouldn't have a bill. I know you're probably talking to someone else, but remember what I told you. We got it done."

In their letter, the two state lawmakers asked for reassurance from the oil companies that they were not involved:

We do not know if anyone at Conoco Phillips, or any of the oil companies engaged in criminal conduct, and do not suggest such conduct occurred. But we have an obligation to the public to make sure we receive reliable assurances that nobody from your companies participated in the improper influence peddling attempts made in 2005 and 2006.

Yesterday a jury found former Alaska state Rep. Pete Kott (R) guilty of taking bribes from former Veco CEO Bill Allen, who testified during the trial that he also paid for some of Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) home remodeling, AP reports.

In exchange for helping to get a petroleum state tax law passed that would entice oil companies to build a pipeline lucrative for Veco, Allen gave Kott cash and promised him a job at the company. Kott's sentencing hearing is scheduled for December 7.

Federal prosecutors say the seven-term former lawmaker from Eagle River, north of Anchorage, accepted nearly $9,000, including a $7,993 check that he used to pay his son to work as his campaign manager. The company also paid for a poll at a cost of a $2,750, prosecutors said.

Also, prosecutors said, VECO promised Kott a job after he left office in exchange for his support of their political agenda.

The jury conviction signals danger for Stevens, who is under investigation for his dealings with Allen.

A newly-identified key player in the investigations of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Rep. Don Young (R-AK), construction worker Robert Williams, told the AP about the testimony he gave a federal grand jury on his double-duty rolls while on the Veco payroll:

Williams said he was in charge of "special projects" for VECO founder Bill Allen, and the renovation of Stevens' home was one such project. Others included working three or four fundraisers for Stevens while on the clock with VECO. Federal elections laws prohibit candidates from accepting donations or free services from corporations.

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Reading about Veco CEO Bill Allen's testimony of Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) home makeover didn't capture Allen's mentality quite like reading the actual transcript. (Available here.)

While we learned last week that Allen admitted to paying for some of the work (alleged bribes of a U.S. senator), Allen's full answers make it sound like he has a very hazy recollection of the job. He wasn't completely sure how much he spent, how many Veco employees he assigned to the job, how long the project took or if he gave Stevens anything else besides some old furniture. It almost seems like it was routine (which for Allen, who's admitted to bribing a group of Alaska pols, it was).

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Last week, the trial of former Alaska state Rep. Pete Kott (R-AK) on corruption charges churned up an unwelcome amount of muck for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK). But yesterday it was Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) turn. Former Veco president Rick Smith testified that he arranged Young's annual mega-fundraiser pig roast at a cost of about $10,000 to $15,000 for a decade. Smith wasn't asked if Young reimbursed him.

The pork galas had been hosted at Veco CEO Bill Allen's house, but since he pleaded guilty to bribing Alaska lawmakers, a change of venue was necessary. So it took place at former Gov. Bill Sheffield's place this year, where about 70 protesters hollered outside. Back in January, Young reimbursed Allen $38,000 for "fundraising costs," though Young hadn't held a fundraiser that month. The refund seems to be part of Young's new habit of returning suspect fundraising money after federal investigators become interested.

Muck accusations are flying the other way up in Alaska these days. A lawyer for former state Rep. Vic Kohring (R-AK) said the FBI had another former lawmaker who was secretly cooperating in the ongoing Veco probe pressure Kohring into pleading guilty to bribery.

From the AP:

Investigators normally are prohibited from contacting defendants once they have a lawyer.

Kohring has pleaded not guilty to bribery and extortion charges despite what defense lawyer John Henry Browne contended was persistent pressure from the Justice Department to change the plea.

That pressure culminated recently, Browne said, when Kohring's former aide received a call from an aide in state Sen. Fred Dyson's office. The message, Browne said, was to take a plea deal.

It was only last week that Browne learned Dyson had been working with investigators since 2006. Details about the cooperation emerged in a related trial and showed that Dyson helped prosecutors persuade oil contractor Bill Allen to cooperate in the overarching investigation.

In July, Kohring's lawyers asked to push back his corruption trial for three months because it was going to take them that long to get through the mountain of physical and digital evidence the FBI collected against Kohring. The trial is slated to start on October 22.

The mystery is solved! (Again) On the witness stand yesterday Bill Allen identified the "Senator B" in his guilty plea as former State Senator Ben Stevens (R-AK), son of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK).

Allen pleaded guilty to paying Stevens "consulting fees" in exchange for votes -- and made it clear that he's a briber with a big heart.

As to Stevens, he started consulting for Veco in 1995, six years before he was appointed to the Senate, Allen said. "He was real good at details. He was like Pete [Kott]. He would work," Allen said.

By the time Stevens was in the Senate, he had four kids, Allen noted. "How am I supposed to say 'now that you're a senator, Ben, I can't give you more money,' " Allen testified. "I couldn't do that."

Politicians have mouths to feed too, after all.

Former Veco CEO Bill Allen testified in the criminal prosecution of state Rep. Pete Kott (R-AK) yesterday, in yet another example of how he likes to keep pols on the hook:

"... Allen talked about overpaying a flooring job done by Kott by more than $7,000 and of scheming to get at least some of that money to Kott's son so that he could work on Kott's 2006 campaign, when a poll showed he was in surprising trouble. Even the poll itself was secretly paid for by Veco, which if true would be a hidden -- and illegal -- campaign contribution by the company to Kott."

Allen also testified that Kott joked about wanting a job handing out towels to women on beaches in Barbados, but that he had genuinely planned to give Kott a job as a Veco lobbyist, which pays $6,000 to $12,000 a month.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) is well connected in the state's scandal circuit. He came up twice yesterday in two separate Alaska cases, one criminal and one civil, that both hinge on the financial ties between public officials and company leaders.

In the favors-for-votes corruption trial of former state legislator Pete Kott (who dreams of a topless beaches and a Barbados prison gig), the FBI played a videotape of a secret meeting between Veco executives discussing Stevens' arrival, just in time to support legislation they wanted pushed through the state legislature.

In the grainy video, VECO Corp. executives Bill Allen and Rick Smith can be heard talking about how to ensure passage of an oil tax bill. If approved, the bill would increase chances that a natural gas pipeline would be built, a deal that could mean huge profits for VECO.

Allen and Smith said they wanted to ensure Stevens was asked "good questions" that would steer him toward discussing the bill and the pipeline. The senator, Allen said, would make clear that "we need oil."

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It's the American dream to retire to a job as a prison warden near topless beaches in Barbados. Well, at least, that was former state Rep. Pete Kott's (R-AK) dream, and Veco CEO Bill Allen was going to do his best to make it happen -- in exchange for a lucrative oil pipeline, of course.

In opening statements in Kott's public corruption trial, the prosecution played the jury phone conversations recorded by the FBI where Kott jokes (at least once while audibly tipsy) about his hopes for the prison position, but is serious about a future with Veco after leaving his post.

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The parents of former Alaska Rep. Vic Kohring, indicted for allegedly selling his vote on an oil pipeline proposal to Veco executives, have asked at least seven lobbyists for contributions to their son's legal defense fund, KTUU reports, appearances be damned:

"I think if Rep. Kohring really wants to try and say he honestly wasn't influenced illegally by this money, then I would find a different way to raise money than to ask lobbyists for it," [House Speaker John Harris] said.

The Alaska-Veco scandal just got sexier -- sort of. Now all it needs is rock and roll.

According to court documents, the FBI recorded former Alaska House Speaker Pete Kott and former Veco CEO Bill Allen talking about sleeping and sexual enhancement pills Allen gave Kott. Unfortunately for Kott, he seemed to get the pharmaceuticals confused:

"Man, I've been having a hard time sleeping," Kott complained to Allen.

"So that worked pretty good," Allen said, laughing.

"Which ones are which?" said Kott.

"Goddamn it, I told you now, just use the white ones ... to sleep," Allen reminded him. "And the the goddamn, ah, brown or whatever they are, that's for (explicit language for sex), and the other one is for sleeping."

"Yeah, I thought I was taking the sleeping pill. Took the wrong one. Still got the white one," Kott said.

"You're something else," Allen said, laughing. "You're something else, Pete."

Kott wants the evidence kept from the jury.

Get the party horns out! Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of the FBI's raid on the offices of six Alaska state legislators (including Ben Stevens'), Veco and other undisclosed locations. Sadly, none of the "Corrupt Bastard Club" paraphernalia has surfaced on Ebay.

KTUU reports that the raid marked a public turning-point. Gov. Sarah Palin (R), for instance, ousted Gov. Frank Murkowski last year in the primary and went on to win the general election on a campaign touting ethics reform.

"It was a manifestation of the need for the ethics reform that so many Alaskans were craving and were calling for anyway," Palin said.

Who is the man behind the key scandals erupting in Alaska? It's Bill Allen, former CEO of Veco Corp., of course. But how did he get to be such a political force in the state? The Los Angeles Times take us through Allen's story:

Of all the scandals and investigations, the one that has drawn the most attention here -- and that could lead to a watershed change in Alaska politics -- centers on Allen, a high school dropout from Socorro, N.M., who arrived in Alaska in the 1960s as a welder.

When oil was discovered in Prudhoe Bay in 1968, Allen formed the VECO oil-services company with a partner who later left, and then rode the roller-coaster economy of the Alaska oil fields.

Veco filed for bankruptcy in the 1980s, but was saved by (of all things) the Exxon Valdez spill which drenched Prince William Sound with millions of gallons of oil. Veco got the major contract to clean it all up.

Allen had become a big political player in Alaska by then, and his clout only grew over the years. The Times points out that it's hard to pin down Allen's drive, whether its greed or a thirst for political power (or both).

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