Something Smells Fishy With Lisa Murkowski

Something Smells Fishy With Sen. Murkowski, Sen. Snowe and Rep. Frank

By Tom Lamb (Red County):  Just as mysterious as the orange goo that washed up on the shores of northwest  Alaska, a mystery that surrounds an ex-aide to our Senator Lisa Murkowski by the name of Arne Fuglvog is unfolding.

Last week, The Anchorage Daily News headlined a fishy story with: Murkowski learned of plea deal 3 months after it was made.

The interesting part of the story was this:

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Thursday that she had no idea for three months that her fisheries adviser had signed a plea deal with federal prosecutors in which he’d admitted to illegal fishing and agreed to nearly a year in federal prison. But Murkowski said she still kept him on the job for a month after he told her of his crime in June.

(…)

Murkowski said Fuglvog did tell her on June 29 he was going to enter in a plea agreement on Aug. 1.

A fishy plea deal and guilty until proven innocent

Knowing Fuglvog was guilty, our Senator Lisa Murkowski kept Mr. Fuglvog on her staff:

“He stayed on my staff until the 31st of July. The fact of the matter is we have a legal system here in this country — an individual is innocent until proven guilty. I applied that to Arne,” she said.

In Senator Murkowski’s legal world, even though on June 29th, Fuglvog admitted to Murkowski he was guilty and the plea deal (misdemeanor and 10 months), Murkowski said he was in effect, innocent when she knew he was guilty.

Moreover, Murkowski believed so much in the legal system, according to a past story written by Dan Riehl, Murkowski flunked the bar exam four times and may have cheated to pass it.

Sleeping With the Fishy

And given Murkowski’s past on trying to pass the bar exam four times and her questionable integrity, the saying politics makes for strange bed- fellows fits Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Barney Frank.

According to another Anchorage Daily News story, the Left’s Shannyn Moore evidently was trying to scuttle Fugvlog’s nomination as head to the National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS):

Fuglvog was widely reported in fishing industry journals as one of two finalists for the position and had letters of support from both Murkowski and Alaska Sen. Mark Begich. But Fuglvog pulled his name from consideration in July 2009, saying that the selection process was going on for too long.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Steward said Wednesday that Fuglvog has been under investigation for “some time,” but wouldn’t be more specific about just when the investigation started.

Shannyn Moore, an Anchorage talk show host and political activist, said Wednesday that people who had been crew on Fuglvog’s fishing vessel contacted her around December 2008.

Moore said the people, who she declined to name, told her they had already been called in to testify as part of an investigation of Fuglvog. They were upset to see Fuglvog was under consideration to head the fisheries service, Moore said.

Moore said she was given a copy of a partial “fish log book” detailing Fuglvog’s actual catches, as opposed to what he reported catching. She said she contacted the office of Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, because Frank was supporting the other finalist to lead the national fisheries service. Frank’s pick didn’t get the job either.

Frank spokesman Harry Gural confirmed Wednesday that Moore had contacted a staffer in his office. Gural said Frank’s office had already been aware of things Moore was talking about and did not have any evidence of wrongdoing.

In an Alaska Dispatch story (see PDF file),Rep. Barney Frank came up with a fishy story of his own.

The official statement in the Alaska Dispatch story is Frank knew nothing about Moore’s contact.

So the bottom line is: Shannyn Moore contacted a Barney Frank staffer and Frank stated he didn’t  know anything about it.

Do you buy it?

In an e-mail I received, the source of the e-mail stated that they received the following response to a question they asked a reporter at the Gloucestertimes.com.

From: XXXXXXXXX <[email protected]>

To: [email protected]

Sent: Wed, October 20, 2010 11:39:00 PM

Subject: why did arne foglvog withdraw from the race to be head of noaa

What reasons have your heard offered for why Arne took his name off the table?  [re to be head of NOAA or NMFS]

On Oct 22, 2010, at 7:40 AM,

Hi XXXXXX,

Because of his illegal fishing, and the fact that his crew were going to turn him in to NMFS

Now if a reporter at the Gloucester Times knew Murkowski’s aide had fished illegally and had taken his name off the table because of that, Rep. Barney Frank had to know Murkowski ‘s aide had done some fishy things.

And even though the reporter from the Gloucester Times knew this, during the general election between Murkowski and Miller, no stories were written about it in Alaska or in the National media?

Moreover, what about  Senator Olympia Snowe?

According to Shannyn Moore, she also alerted Snowe to the allegations about Fuglvog fishing illegally.

And when it comes to allegations, you should have a Smoking Gun to prove the allegation.

The Smoking Fish

In this mystery story, instead of there being a Smoking Gun, you have a Smoking Fish.

It’s a real stinker because a crime had been committed but it was covered up (hint- it has to do with newspapers) in fish-wrapping paper.

Through a FOIA request, it is found that a complaint was filed on May 4th 2005 against Fuglvog and in the 42 page document , Fuglvog was charged with catching too many fish and then fined.

And according to the source that provided me with the redacted FOIA documents, there were other crimes, but for some reason, the documents related to the crimes were destroyed by NOAA.

Were the documents related to new evidence or past incidents where Fuglvog was fined? Keep in mind it is alleged that from 2001 to 2006 he had committed some type of legal infraction.

Are the feds trying to cover their tracks on past crimes that were committed, documented and expunged?

I don’t think the answer to the above question will be known.

So, what should you take from all of this?

There was knowledge and a record in 2005 of Fuglvog being fined for fishing illegally and in 2009, Fuglvog wanted to be boss of an agency that fined him.

This 2005 document is not some type of new evidence found through years of investigative work, the guy had a past that was documented, the only question on the 2005 incident is: where was a press release from NOAA?

Unless you were on some Big Wig fishery board perhaps or rubbed fins with some Big Fish, I would think when one is fined, a press release could be issued with the purpose to brag about the incident. And I’d say Fuglvog was known to rub fins with some pretty Big Fish out there like Frank Murkowski and some past federal senators.

Moreover, because there was a record of Fuglvog’s 2005 fine, there is no doubt Lisa Murkowski and Barney Frank knew about Fuglvog’s past.  And I don’t think there are many Alaskans who think the big wigs in Congress and the fishing political action committees didn’t know about Fuglvog’s crimes.

The FOIA request indicates that prosecutors may have sat on the case until after the election, and reporters were alerted, but they sat on their hands.

So the corruption we thought was purged from Alaska politics a few years ago is still alive and well.

We already know (according to the Democrats) Murkowski will lie, the question from this story is: how many fish skeletons are in Lisa Murkowski’s past that caused her to vote with the senate democrats and Senator Olympia Snowe?

Read article at Red County HERE.