Jury Out on Uncle Ted

Let's be clear about this: the facts as they exist really should be enough to send him down the river for bribery, but it's easier to show that he took, and did not report gifts.

We have disinterested parties like a contractor testifying that Veco specifically told a contractor to avoid sending a 13 grand bill:

Mr. Paone said Mr. Allen told him to "eat" the final bill and suggested that he "should look at it as a political contribution."

Mr. Paone said he never alerted Sen. Stevens to the incident because he was concerned it would be "business suicide" to cross Mr. Allen, who was a powerful businessman in Alaska.

We also have his friend who managed the renovations of his chalet that Stevens never asked for a bill or invoice.

Stevens should not be a particularly sympathetic figure, what with his claiming that if anything was done wrong, it was his wife who screwed up, and his decision, because no lawyer in his right mind would put him up there, which showed, as Dana Milbank says:

Ted Stevens once told his Senate colleagues that he's "a mean, miserable SOB." Yesterday, he set out to prove it.

(See also here, here, here, and here)

Considering the degree to which the reports all agree that he was contemptuous, evasive, and just plain awful as a witness, I have to conclude that his testifying was Stevens' and not his Attorney's idea.

In closing arguments, the prosecutor got to the most damning evidence in the case, the fact that Stevens acknowledged what he was doing could get him into legal trouble.

That pretty much shoots down the argument that it was an "innocent mistake".

Of course, considering how badly the prosecution has handled this, I get the sense that the judge wants to slap them silly for good cause, there are no guarantees,

In any case, the jury is deliberating now.