Stevens takes personal responsibility - blames contractor in gift-giving trial

[devilgrrl]

WASHINGTON - Sen. Ted Stevens blamed his friend, an overzealous contractor, for the legal mess that has the senator on trial for corruption Thursday.

The Senate's longest-serving Republican, Stevens is accused of lying on Senate forms about more than $250,000 in home renovations and gifts he received from a longtime friends, oil contractor Bill Allen.

During opening statements, prosecutors described Stevens as a crafty politician whose decades in office schooled him in the art of concealing gifts and favors.

But in the first public defense of the Alaska senator in the lengthy FBI investigation, his attorney painted a different picture, putting the blame for the ordeal squarely on Allen, the government's star witness.

The case has weakened one of one of the Senate's most powerful Republicans and a patriarch of Alaska politics for generations. He is now such a political liability that Republican vice presidential nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin refused to endorse him in his tight re-election battle.

"Ted Stevens' trial started a couple of days ago," Palin said Thursday. "We'll see where that goes."

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