Alaska's Entire Republican Congressional Delegation May Go to Jail

Posted by Guest Blogger at 5:50 AM on August 1, 2007.

This post, written by Howie Klein, originally appeared on Down With Tyranny!

Today's NY Times brings up the sticky question of the lack of ethics of the third member of Alaska's corrupt congressional delegation, Lisa Murkowski. While Young and two Stevenses are probably headed for prison, Murkowski, at least so far, just looks like someone without any ethics. A criminal investigation into her doesn't seem to have started, at least not yet.

She comes from a family background where ethics was a word used with complete contempt and disdain. Her father, Frank Murkowski, may well have been the most corrupt-- and disliked-- governor in the history of Alaska. He appointed her senator to replace him when he swapped out of the Senate and into the Governorship.

But she has been forced to defend herself publicly against conflict-of-interest accusations and announced last week that she would sell back 1.27 acres of riverfront land that she had bought for $179,500 from a local real estate developer who is tied to the investigation of Mr. Stevens.

Ms. Murkowski's announcement came a day after a self-described ethics watchdog group in Washington filed a complaint over the land deal with the Senate Ethics Committee. The complaint accused Ms. Murkowski of paying an Anchorage developer, Bob Penney, only a small fraction of the true value of the land and said the deal amounted to an improper and potentially illegal gift.

Local real estate agents in Alaska said the property, on the banks of the Kenai River, had a value of up to $350,000.

This is a common Republican Party trick used to illegally funnel bribes to lawmakers in return for earmarks, government contracts and special favors. If investigators tie Murkowski's "good deal" to anything illegal, she'll be facing prison just like the other two. She's already denying everything, of course, which they must teach you the first week you become a GOP member of Congress. One of her flacks told the Times that her "decision to sell the land was made before the complaint by the watchdog group, the National Legal and Policy Center, and had nothing to do with it." What a coincidence!

Tagged as: republican party, alaska, stevens, young, murkowski