Was the Tennessee Waltz the Playbook for the Alaska Oil Spill?

From Wikipedia

Operation Tennessee Waltz was a sting operation set up by federal and state law enforcement agents, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. The operation led to the arrest of seven Tennessee state lawmakers and two men identified as "bagmen" in the indictment on the morning of May 26, 2005 on bribery charges. The FBI and TBI followed these arrests with an additional arrest of two county commissioners, one from Hamilton County, and the other a member of the prominent Hooks family, of Memphis. Investigators also arrested a former county administrator.

The name of the operation comes from the state song of Tennessee, "Tennessee Waltz."

And a news report from the Nashville Post:

'Tennessee Waltz' FBI Informant: I Paid Off Ulysses Jones

Email | Print By Ken Whitehouse and Richard Lawson

12-14-2005 6:32 AM —

State Rep. Ulysses Jones (D-Memphis) took a bribe from an FBI informant to push through legislation favorable to the government’s fake company E-Cycle, informant Tim Willis has claimed.

Willis, a one-time Memphis lobbyist, worked for the FBI by posing as a lobbyist for the fictitious Georgia company. E-Cycle was central to the sting operation dubbed “Tennessee Waltz,” a sting set up to nab politicians taking bribes, which led to the arrests of four sitting lawmakers and three other political operatives on May 26 of this year.

And from the Chattanoogan, we learn there was a hero:

Attorney Says Former Rep. Brenda Turner Was Tennessee Waltz "Hero"
posted August 25, 2007

A Chattanooga attorney who supported former Rep. Brenda Turner through her long political career said she was a "hero" in the "Tennessee Waltz" scandal that brought down several prominent politicians.

Attorney Russell King said, "They came to her, offered her money, and she turned them down. She did it the right way. She told them a campaign contribution would be hunky-dory, but she was not doing it any other way."

Will Alaska have a hero or two?



And how could there be an FBI legislative corruption trial without a blogger?



And what do the FBI call this operation? The Alaska Two Step? No, there's more than two steps. How about the Alaska Oil Spill? Allen and Smith did work in the oil industry and they did spill the beans. The PeePee Tea Scandal? But the Anderson case didn't involve PPT and future indictments will get beyond PPT too. Do they have a name for ours? In Tennessee, the name came out in the press coverage of the indictments. I thought maybe the press came up with the name, but its in the DOJ press releases.

At the end of the DOJ Public Integrity Section press release on the conviction of Roscoe Dixon, they include the "operation name."

Operation Tennessee Waltz is an ongoing, active, continuing investigation. The people of Tennessee and their elected officials need to understand that where the public trust has been violated, the United States Attorney's Office will prosecute. This office will continue to aggressively pursue those elected officials who engage in public corruption.

All this "the people of Tennessee. . . need to understand" sounds a little condescending. Maybe someone wised up and they decided the cutesy name and the lecture on public ethics didn't need to be included in the Alaska press releases.

This case was prosecuted by trial attorneys Nicholas A. Marsh and Edward P. Sullivan of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section, headed by Chief William M. Welch, II, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph W. Bottini and James A. Goeke from the District of Alaska. The case is being investigated by the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigative Division.

Do they have a name for ours, but are keeping it quiet?

And I think I may have cracked part of the Public Integrity Section code. I mentioned in earlier posts that the press releases on Kott and Kohring never mentioned that there were counts for which these men were found Not Guilt.

The jury found Kott guilty of conspiracy, extortion under cover of official right, and bribery.

Following an eight-day jury trial, Kohring, a member of the Alaska State House of Representatives from 1994 to 2007, was convicted of conspiracy, bribery and
attempted extortion, for corruptly soliciting and receiving financial benefits from a
company in exchange for performing official acts in the Alaska State Legislature on the company’s behalf.

But I noticed that in the Dixon press release it says:

Mr. Dixon was found guilty on all five counts of the indictment. [emphasis mine]

So I looked up the Anderson press release, and bingo, it says the same thing:

The jury in Anchorage convicted Anderson today of all seven counts charged in a December 2006 indictment.

So, if the press release doesn't say "all counts" I'm guessing it means they got off on one or more counts. Come on PIN (yes, they abbreviate the Public Integrity Section as PIN, but think about it and it makes sense) you can put on your press releases that you didn't get every count. Don't force the reader to have to look up other sources of information to find that out.