In Alaska, Ex-Governor’s Aide to Plead Guilty(by William Yardley, NY Times, March 4, 2008)The chief of staff under former (Republican) Gov. Frank H. Murkowski of Alaska agreed Monday to plead guilty to concealing donations made to Mr. Murkowski’s 2006 re-election campaign by an influential private contractor at the center of a wide-ranging federal investigation into Alaska politics and government. The aide, James Clark, who served under the governor during his single term in office, December 2002 to December 2006, agreed to plead guilty to a single felony charge of fraud for not reporting campaign donations made by the VECO Corporation, an engineering and oil-field services company.
According to court documents filed Monday, Mr. Clark arranged for VECO to pay $68,500 for polling and political consultants for Mr. Murkowski’s campaign beginning in April 2006 and continuing into August “in a manner so that the public would be deceived and the payments would not be disclosed, as required by law,” according to documents. The former governor lost his bid for re-election.
The court documents said Mr. Clark had solicited help from two VECO executives, Bill J. Allen and Richard L. Smith, who pleaded guilty to bribery and other charges last year. The documents said the executives supported efforts by the governor to alter the way the state taxed oil companies and to build a natural gas pipeline.
Mr. Clark’s plea comes as many of Alaska’s most prominent elected officials are under scrutiny for their ties to VECO. Senator Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator in history, and Representative Don Young (also a Republican), the state’s sole House member, are both being investigated. Alaskans have been very poorly served by their all-Republican "leaders." Their entire Congressional delegation to Congress is under investigation for various crimes! These crooks are a disgrace to their state.
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