So when Department of Justice prosecutors chose to have the senator indicted less than 100 days before the 2008 elections, those who knew him were stunned. The senator pleaded not guilty (emphatically) and demanded a speedy trial, wanting to clear his name before November.

“This case is about concealment,” the Department of Justice’s lead lawyer stated in her opening statement, claiming that the senator had concealed that he had not paid full value for renovations to his modest Alaska cabin. In fact, Ted Stevens and his wife had paid more than $160,000 for renovations that independent appraisers valued at less than $125,000 at the time.

But relying on false records and fueled by testimony from a richly rewarded “cooperating” witness that the senator was merely “covering his ass” when he wrote a note stating that his desire to comply with all Senate rules, government prosecutors convinced jurors to find the him guilty just eight days before the general election, which he lost by less than 2 percent of the vote. The cooperating witness, wealthy Alaska businessman Bill Allen, was testifying for his own freedom (he was guilty of unrelated crimes), that of his children (who received immunity from prosecution after the government apparently threatened them) and the ability to sell his company for hundreds of millions of dollars.