Stevens: “Screw Them if They Prove We Did Something Wrong”

Audiotape speaks for itself.

“Screw them, if they prove we did something wrong,” the senator says in one of a series of secretly recorded telephone calls in the fall of 2006. “In my heart, I don’t think we did. … I say, screw it.”

Stevens, unaware Allen already was cooperating with investigators, advises him, “We ought to really lay low right now.” He also tells him to cut down on drinking, watch his health and await the outcome of the probe into more than $250,000 in renovations on the senator’s cabin and other gifts provided by Allen’s oil pipeline company, VECO Corp.

“Let’s stick this thing out together, OK?” Stevens says.