Today's guilty plea of Jim Clark, ex-Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski's Chief-of-Staff, came as no surprise to me. Nor to a lot of people, I suspect.Sean Cockerham had an impressive biographical piece on Clark up an hour ago. Richard Mauer led the story on the Anchorage Daily News web page, and Wesley Loy has chimed in for them from Juneau. It appears many people were expecting this.
A close friend in Juneau reports that he saw Sen. Lyda Green this afternoon, just after the news broke. She looked like "a bomb had gone off next to her."
I need to disclose that one of my most dear friends is Clark's daughter, Jocelyn. I know that she has been under tremendous stress over this since last summer. I feel a need to keep my distance and find more objectivity in watching Clark's role in this unfold than I have, for instance, in covering Rep. Vic Kohring.
Clark's admission makes a number of remarkable stipulations, possibly the most important of which is this:
26. JAMES CLARK acknowledges that the statements and admissions contained in the foregoing Factual Basis for Pleas do not constitute all of the facts relevant to the matters discussed herein, nor do the foregoing paragraphs contain a complete discussion of the acts taken by CLARK and 'or his co-conspirators. Instead, CLARK understands that this Factual Basis for Plea is merely a summary of some, but not all, criminal conduct engaged in by CLARK.
Update - 10:45 p.m: Steve Aufrecht at What Do I Know? has a good pre-analysis post up on this. From Thailand. Imagine that - an Alaska blogger in Thailand beats 75% of the Alaska media to this important story...
12 comments:
I read back and posted more about Dittman's involvement in all of this as well.
I'm betting Clark regrets pissing him off!
The poll stuff for Murkowski is just what gets Jim Clark to sit across a table from Edward Sullivan's people at DOJ Public Integrity for many long hours of questions.
Congrats on being mentioned in the ADN!
Mr. Clark's situation, you say, "...came as no surprise to me." And yet, in early January, when you ran the "poll" on whose name would surface next, Jim Clark's name was suggested; in response, you said:
"I thought of putting Jim Clark up there, but although I know he and his family are under enormous stress, his name hasn't surfaced at all since late last summer. Chances are higher that he's co-operating in some way.
I'd change my mind if I found out more specifics."
It seems you have found out more specifics.
anonymous,
I have. Mr. Clark is certainly cooperating more than Mr. Kohring, for instance.
I'll leave it at that. I'm close to the family.
One thing that makes this whole situation so sad is that AK is one big small town. Everyone knows everyone. I think it is easier when you don't know the people involved, but when you know the people or their family, it hits close to home.
Thanks for the link, but you give me too much credit. Just dumb luck. I happened to look at the ADN just when it got posted and then used their links to the court documents.
RCM - Actually, I think it's better that we all have some link to these people. When they are just names in the news, we don't have to face the complexity of human beings and morality. We can just mark them off as evil or bad, "but I would never do that." When we know the people we realize that people have many facets. Although they do something bad, doesn't mean they can't be, or appear to be, decent in other arenas. It also helps us to realize that the nice man in the suit who always smiles and says hello to the kids, is a crook in his other life.
Maybe voters will take this all into consideration in April and November.
I'm not surprised after living 33 years in this obviously wild but seriously goofy state and marrying a local blah blah blah--- this just makes me laugh out loud that this is finally taken seriously by who?? Our kids have been left a questionable legacy of of the same same old corruption and influence peddling that made us sick to our stomachs when we were in college in the seventies ( 70's for you youngsters out there ) doh!! Thank god the kids are at least paying some sort of attention! Let's all hope that their parents taught them some critical thinking skills. For our state and nation's sake---let's clean it up!
Thanks for caring!
The old but disgusted dude.
I am religious. Do you pray for them, Phil? I cannot think of a better example of why we need to pray for our leaders and lift them up. The ones who seem to need it the least actually need it the most.
It appears the federal prosecutor is connecting the dots around a truly malignant core of conspirators, yet to be indicted. Clark's stipulation #26 hints at what the prosecutor is really after. Let us hope the whole conspiracy is laid out before the November elections.
pb - it will be.
tnc - I'm not religious, but I reflect on God. A lot. God gives lots of examples of where our leaders need to lift THEMSELVES up.
I sure hope you find some way of getting this info to national newspapers, or any other way of letting people know what's going on "up there". I live in Ohio, and have been volunteering for Obama in my small rural city.
I will be writing a letter to the editor of our local paper just to give some important info to our residents who haven't a clue as to the "real sarah barracuda" and think of her as a real Christian "hockey mom".
What I'd like to know is why is a so called Christian comparing herself to a breed of dog with a reputation for vicious aggressiveness? Isn't Christ usually compared to a lamb or a dove? So why would a Christian be proud of being a vicious dog? And why are so many other Christians eating it up as if were the Second Coming?
Keep putting the truth out there. We need it.
Soozi U. from Ohio
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