Last Friday, PBS’ NOW with David Brancaccio covered the VECO Alaska oil corruption scandal. If you’re new to the scandal that has enveloped these non-continental politicians and is creeping up on Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young this video is the place to start. Below is a 6 minute clip from the full video. Watch the full video here.

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Former VECO CEO Bill Allen was on the stand today in the trial of Alaska state Rep. Vic Kohring and testified that his own cousin attempted to blackmail him over VECO’s work on Sen. Ted Stevens’ Girdwood, Alaska home. The Alaska Daily News is covering the trial:

Kohring Lawyer John Henry Browne asked Veco founder Bill Allen about something that came up at the corruption trial last month of former state Rep. Pete Kott. It was regarding Allen’s nephew, Dave Anderson.

Anderson was blackmailing you and you threatened to kill him? Browne asked.

“I was not going to kill him, no,” Allen responded

But that’s the information the government had, wasn’t it? Browne asked.

Allen went back to a point he made a number of times during cross examination.

That’s just part of the story, Allen said. “You have to do the whole thing.”

Anyway, what was Anderson blackmailing him about? Browne asked.

“Ted Stevens’ house,” Allen anwered.

He was referring to a 2000 renovation that doubled the size of Stevens’ home in Girdwood. Allen testitied in the Kott trial that Veco employees worked on the renovation and he donated some materials.

Veco paid for that, correct? Browne asked Allen.

Allen said he didn’t know how much.

Browne asked him if part of his cooperation deal with the government was to help investigate Stevens and the money Veco gave for the Girdwood house?

Yes, Allen answered.

The case against Stevens continues to pile up in court records but he still sits on powerful committees with the full backing of his peers. Perhaps if he were to make a pit stop at the Minneapolis airport bathroom his stature in the Senate might change. For now though, a growing case of public corruption can be ignored.

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The bribery investigation into Sen. Ted Stevens has jumped to a whole new level. The FBI taped phone calls between Stevens and VECO executive Bill Allen in a sting operation.

Hat tip: TPM

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This morning a friend of mine, who is an Alaska resident, called me to ask if I could use the power of the Internet to find out if the state had released the total amount of money that he gets from the state oil dividend program, i.e.: free money for residents from oil revenues. This led me to the Anchorage Daily News Web site where the main story was, of course, the on-going investigation and court trials of Alaska politicians and oil company executives. If you’re looking for coverage of this massive statewide scandal, the ADN is the place to go. I was really impressed by the amount of multimedia they have on their site. From ADN, I’ve embedded below the testimony of VECO executive Bill Allen where he admits to using personal funds and VECO employees to work on Sen. Ted Stevens home remodeling project, a center piece to the investigation of the senior Senator from Alaska. Allen does not sound comfortable here.

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One thing that the lobbying and ethics reform bill didn’t have to clarify was bribery; that one is already written pretty clearly into the law. Sen. Ted Stevens looks to be in serious trouble for accepting bribes in the form of an extreme home makeover. The Associated Press broke the story earlier today that VECO executive Bill Allen has testified to federal investigators, with whom he is cooperating, that he paid between one and four VECO employees to work on Stevens’ home for six months. This is in direct contradiction to Stevens’ earlier assertions that Allen did not pay for the remodeling. From the AP:

Ex-Veco Corp. CEO Bill Allen admitted in court Friday that he had company employees work several months on a remodeling project at the Girdwood home of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens.

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Under cross-examination by defense attorney James Wendt, representing former state Rep. Pete Kott, Allen acknowledged that the more than $400,000 he admitted spending in the bribery charge was for other legislators - and including for work done at the Girdwood home of Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate.

"I gave Ted some old furniture," Allen said. "I don’t think there was a lot of material. There was some labor.

The workers were Veco employees, probably one to four at a time, Allen said. He said the work on the home lasted for "probably a couple of months." Later, he said it might have been as much as six months.

The remodeling work in summer and fall 2000 more than doubled the size of the house, a four-bedroom structure that is Stevens’ official residence in Alaska.

Stevens has said while the contracting bills were first sent to Veco for accuracy checks, he paid for the work.

This follows right on the heels of another AP report on a video showing Allen and VECO executive Rick Smith discussing their powerful ally, Ted Stevens:

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."

At this point things look really bad for Stevens. Allen is in an agreement with federal investigators to flip on political figures involved in this corruption case so that Allen’s adult children do not get charged. Too bad for Stevens there is no one in Alaska for him to flip on; he’s the big fish.

Meanwhile in Washington, the Senate Ethics Committee wastes its time investigating Larry Craig for allegedly being gay. I could wait until they start investigating real abuses of power but by then Stevens might not be sitting in the Senate anymore.

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