Remodeling A Senator’s Home, All in A Year’s Work

Reading about Veco CEO Bill Allen’s testimony of Sen. Ted Stevens’ (R-AK) home makeover didn’t capture Allen’s mentality quite like reading the actual transcript. (Available here.)

While we learned last week that Allen admitted to paying for some of the work (alleged bribes of a U.S. senator), Allen’s full answers make it sound like he has a very hazy recollection of the job. He wasn’t completely sure how much he spent, how many Veco employees he assigned to the job, how long the project took or if he gave Stevens anything else besides some old furniture. It almost seems like it was routine (which for Allen, who’s admitted to bribing a group of Alaska pols, it was).

Here is one telling back and forth between Allen and Rep. Pete Kott’s defense attorney:

WENDT: OK. And in addition to, uh, Sen. Ted Stevens house, where you, … well let me ask you this, in addition to supplying the Veco employees to work on the house, did you provide any other assistance? Either financial assistance in paying bills or providing workers or anything of that nature?

ALLEN: No.

WENDT: Just the workers. That’s all you provided?

ALLEN: Well I told about the, uh, the uh old used furniture

WENDT: The furniture. That’s all?

ALLEN: That’s all I can, you know, remember. Uh … uh I, like again I hadn’t, uh, I went by, maybe, maybe a month or two to, to see what they were doing. But I wasn’t there. Most the time I was gone with Veco’s business in Canada and Russia.