Why Ted Stevens is innocent: Paying for things is elective

I just can’t get over this dumb trial.  The whole world of finance remains in the crapper, my own work is getting crazy, and yet all I can think about is Ted ‘Fucking’ Stevens.

As I am anything-but-loath-to-mention, I expected ex-Senator Stevens [R-AK] to get out of seeing prison one way or another.  According to the New York Times, the method for his escape was prosecutorial incompetence (massive incompetence, actually) or bald-faced concealment of evidence:

Even before Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. moved last week to throw out the conviction, the trial record was filled with instances of serious prosecutorial mistakes that dismayed the large corps of Washington lawyers who followed the case, including former prosecutors and defense lawyers.

Most alarming to these lawyers was the prosecutors’ repeated failure to disclose information that might have helped the defense despite the sanctity in which lawyers are taught to hold those obligations.

…

The most important question that remains largely unanswered, said officials and veteran lawyers, is whether the corner cutting, especially the serial concealment of information damaging to the government, was a result of flawed judgments and heavy workloads or an intentional step by prosecutors to increase their chances of a high-profile conviction.

A New York Times article published the next day provides a bit more detail in what appears to be the most relevant and egregious failures to disclose information:

During the trial, defense lawyers argued that Mr. Stevens had written a letter to Bill Allen, a onetime friend and the owner of a huge oil services company, asking for a bill for all the goods and services that Mr. Allen had provided. Mr. Allen, the chief prosecution witness, discredited that letter, testifying that he had been told by Bob Persons, an emissary from Mr. Stevens, to ignore the letter because the senator was just seeking to provide a false record to protect himself.

But recently discovered notes showed that prosecutors who interviewed Mr. Allen on April 15, 2008, heard him say that he did not remember any such conversation with Mr. Persons.

Mr. Stevens’s defense lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, told the court Tuesday that he had been blindsided by Mr. Allen’s testimony about the letter. “It was the most explosive testimony in the case,” Mr. Sullivan said.

Mr. Sullivan said that had he known of the prosecutors’ notes, he would have been able to argue that Mr. Allen’s account of the conversation with Mr. Persons was fabricated.

Paul O’Brien, chief of the new prosecution team that discovered the latest impropriety by the original prosecutors, said in court that “we deeply regret that this has occurred.”

Quick recap:  The reason why Ted Stevens was under investigation was that he received some $250,000 (estimates vary) worth of unpaid-for services from one of the major beneficiaries of his legislative acts as a Senator, the former CEO of VECO Corporation — an Alaskan oil services company — Bill Allen.  Apparently, receiving personal payment from someone who made millions based on your legislative acts is a bit too briberyish for the prudes at the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department.

So here’s where things make my brain hurt:  Ted Stevens receives a ton of stuff he didn’t pay for from Bill Allen (no real argument there).  Bill Allen corroborates that.  The prosecutors — for whatever reason — fail to disclose evidence that would contend that Ted Stevens did try to pay for those services already rendered.  Apparently, due to the prosecutions failure to share that evidence with the defense team, the seven convictions handed down to Ted Stevens for corruption are voided.

I don’t argue that the prosecution didn’t make egregious errors: that seems beyond argument.  And I don’t think anyone even on the nuttiest virtual cabin-in-the-woods corners of the internet is making that claim.  But how the fuck does that particular instance of hiding evidence prove anything other than the prosecution is incompetent?

Why does it matter that Ted Stevens tried to pay for the renovations to his chalet?

If trying to pay for things that beneficiaries of your legislation provide to you is all that is required to conceal corruption, isn’t this criterion set ridiculously low?  Let’s say I’m Senator Ted Stevens, and I attach an earmark to the 2009 Defense Budget allotting $15 billion for a new commercial airplane development program at Boeing, and Boeing sends me my own private jet… and I send them a letter:

“Hey Boeing! Thanks for the awesome jet!  Btw, how much do I owe you?

xoxoxo

-Ted Stevens”

… and Boeing doesn’t reply, I’m still good?  And we don’t have to worry about any undue influence from Boeing on my legislative actions?  Is that all it takes to not-quite-bribe someone?  Just give them tons of cash, have them request a bill of sale, then just never request payment?  But I guess that isn’t Ted Stevens’ fault anyways.  It’d be too much to ask for a sitting Senator to understand how a retail transaction works.

For the non-Senatorial example, let’s say I’m buying a refershing Coca-Cola at the local convenience store.  I line up to pay for it but the person staffing the register is chatting on his cellphone and ignores me.  I count to ten Mississipis.  Can I just walk out with it since the retailer failed to allow me to pay for it?  Why should I be without mouth-watering refreshment due to a cashier’s incompetence?

Can you fucking believe that Ted Stevens, awesomely corrupt for 40 goddamn years at the cost of BILLIONS in taxpayer dollars siphoned to his favored retinue of friends and companies, is going to evade justice and perhaps regain his seat in the Senate because the prosecution either forgot to share this bullshit, inconsequential evidence… or felt they were unable to argue that a sitting Senator had more of a responsibility to pay for services already rendered to a company that profits directly from his lawmaking than sending a letter asking whether or not they wanted the quarter million dollars he owed them?

And why the fuck don’t The Daily Show or the Colbert Report — our leading journalistic institutions by default — find this as absoludicrous as I do?  This deserves a full 8 minute segment with John Hodgeman, Wyatt Cenac, or Stephen’s Formidable Opponent.

… and the cow goes moo