The Daily Background
| Reports: Charges against Ted Stevens (R-Alaska, retired) will be dropped!
by Arlen Parsa
The Justice Department will drop all charges against former Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, NPR has learned.
A jury convicted Stevens last fall of seven counts of lying on his Senate disclosure form in order to conceal $250,000 in gifts from an oil industry executive and other friends. Stevens was the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, however, he lost his bid for an eighth full term in office just days after he was convicted. Since then, charges of prosecutorial misconduct have delayed his sentencing and prompted defense motions for a new trial.
According to Justice Department officials, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has decided to drop the case against Stevens rather than continue to defend the conviction in the face of persistent problems stemming from the actions of prosecutors.
I think the general consensus was that this guy (known for his coining of the phrase “series of tubes” when referring to the internet) was guilty as sin, but I didn’t hear anything about misconduct at the time of the trial (even though it was covered pretty closely in the blogosphere). Consider this a big fail on the part of the blogosphere for not seeing this coming. And a big fail for justice if he’s allowed to get away merely because some prosecutors were jackasses.
