COALGATE - GOP Alaska AG Gregg Renkes resigns.

[paineinthearse]

Alaska State Attorney General Gregg Renkes leaves a news conference in Anchorage, Alaska, Monday, Oct. 4, 2004, after talking about his financial ties to XFx Inc., a Denver company that is trying to commercialize a coal drying process. Renkes announced his resignation Saturday, Feb. 5, 2005 after months of battling criticism for shaping an international trade deal while having a financial stake in a company that stood to profit from it.

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AG state website - http://www.law.state.ak.us/department/ag_office.html

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Questions swirl around attorney general
Monday, December 6, 2004 - by Bill McAllister

Anchorage, Alaska - Attorney General Gregg Renkes says he has no plans to resign. But a key Democrat says that public documents used in a newspaper article Sunday show that Renkes has violated both the state's ethics law and federal law against insider stock trading.
This controversy strikes near the heart of the Murkowski administration. Renkes is one of Gov. Frank Murkowski's top appointees and closest advisers. So it wouldn't have been surprising that the governor made Renkes his point man on negotiations with the government of Taiwan concerning the purchase of coal from the Beluga deposit in Alaska.

But after a year of wooing the Taiwanese -- including a train ride hosted by Gov. Murkowski for President Chen Shui-bian in November 2003 (photo) -- it only became public this fall that Renkes has a potential conflict of interest. The attorney general at one time held more than $100,000 in stock of a company that has an experimental coal-drying technology. The Beluga coal deposit is unusually wet, compared to the coal that already has been mined near Healy.

An article in the Anchorage Daily News on Sunday highlighted many official documents indicating that Renkes pushed the new technology as part of the negotiations with Taiwan. During that same period, the attorney general bought and sold the company's stock in a series of transactions. Democratic Rep. Eric Croft compares the situation to the charges that sent celebrity Martha Stewart to prison. “Attorney General Renkes was buying and selling stock while he was negotiating a very important deal in that publicly traded company,” said Croft (right) “This is serious, not only for the state but under federal criminal law, as well.”

more .... (and other related stories) at http://www.ktuu.com/CMS/templates/master.asp?articleid=8969&zoneid=4

[Randi_Listener]

1. That motherfucker needed to take a hike.

He shitted on the entire state.