From NY TIMES:

Alaska Home of Senator Is Raided by U.S. Agents

WASHINGTON, July 30 — The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service raided the Alaska home of Senator Ted Stevens on Monday in search of evidence about his relationship to a businessman who oversaw a remodeling project that almost doubled the size of the senator’s house, federal law enforcement officials said.

The decision to raid the home suggests that the corruption investigation focused on Mr. Stevens, a long-serving Republican and former chairman, has taken on new urgency.

The businessman, Bill J. Allen, the founder of an oil fields service company that has won tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts with the senator’s help, has pleaded guilty to bribing state legislators.

The F.B.I. confirmed that the raid on Mr. Stevens’s home in the Alaskan ski resort city of Girdwood, about 40 miles south of Anchorage, began about 2:30 p.m. Alaska time, or about 6:30 p.m. Eastern time.

In Washington, Mr. Stevens issued a brief statement: “My attorneys were advised this morning that federal agents wished to search my home in Girdwood in connection with an ongoing investigation. I continue to believe this investigation should proceed to its conclusion without any appearance that I have attempted to influence the outcome.”

A spokesman for the Anchorage office of the F.B.I., David Heller, would not discuss details of what was being sought in the raid and referred calls to the Justice Department’s public integrity division in Washington. The division handles major corruption cases involving public officials.

Mr. Stevens is one of more than a dozen current and former members of Congress who are known to be under scrutiny by the F.B.I.

His case may be the most politically consequential. He is the only senator known to be under criminal investigation, and he continues to wield power on the Appropriations Committee, which controls how the federal budget is distributed. Mr. Stevens, 83, is up for re-election next year and has suggested that he will seek another term.

Mr. Stevens has been caught up in a larger corruption investigation in Alaska that resulted in raids last year on the homes of six state lawmakers, including the senator’s son, Ben, who was then president of State Senate. All of the state lawmakers are under scrutiny over their relationships with Mr. Allen and his company, VECO, and other large Alaska companies.

Senator Stevens’s home in Girdwood was renovated in 2000 with the help of Mr. Allen, a longtime friend, and contractors have said that bills for their work went to VECO before they were passed on to Mr. Stevens.

The remodeled home has 2,471 square feet of living area, about double its original size, with a taxable value of about $420,000, tax records show. The carpentry work alone for the renovation is known to have exceeded $100,000.

Girdwood, which is surrounded by the Chugach Mountains, is popular among skiers and is a second home to many of the most affluent residents of Anchorage, the state’s largest city.

“I will tell you that we paid every bill that was given to us with our own money,” Senator Stevens told reporters in Washington earlier this month.

Mr. Stevens is also a business partner of Mr. Allen. The two men, along with several others, purchased a racehorse, named So Long Birdie, and were occasionally seen dining together at a Girdwood restaurant owned by another of the horse owners, Bob Penney. Mr. Penney testified last month before a federal grand jury in Anchorage that has gathered information in the corruption cases.

Last week, the state’s other senator, Lisa Murkowski, a fellow Republican, announced that she and her husband would sell a large plot of land back to Mr. Penney after a complaint was made to the Senate Ethics Committee about the circumstances of the purchase.

Ms. Murkowski paid about $180,000 for the undeveloped land, which local real estate agents described as about half its true value. The senator said she believed she paid a fair price for the land but had decided to sell it back to Mr. Penney to avoid any “distraction from the major challenges I face in representing Alaska.”

+++

"I love it. God help me, I do love it so..." --- George C. Scott, Patton.

Isn't this the bridge to nowhere guy?

politicians suck- i have come to believe that none of them get to a position of power without being underhanded and somewhat corrupt. The system is flat busted and needs to be reworked.

Quote:

---

Really, between John Robert's seizure and Steven's house raid, this has been a great week for karma to finally kick in on the religious right.

---

That was just Robert's body rejecting the implant.

"it's not a big truck" Senator Stevens

Brownback is an idiot but a relatively harmless one. He doesn't have that much clout or that many connections to be much use politically. What's he going to do for the Republicans give them Kansas and their 6 or 7 electoral votes? Kansas wouldn't vote for Democratic presidential candidate if one shit hundred dollar bills out their ass from Leavenworth to Dodge City so there is no need to bend over backwards for Brownback. Brownback will never be Bob Dole, he has climbed the farthest rung up the political ladder he will ever reach. His only chance at a promotion would be if he got nominated to be an ambassador to some country in Africa because that is about the only issue he cares about that he could have a chance to impact. I actually think he would do pretty good at this, much better than anything he will ever do in the Senate where he is useless.

I can see Brownback being appointed Secretary of Education by whomever he loses the primaries to, so that they can finally kick evolution, Shakespeare, Sex Ed, and the Constitution out the door once and for all.

If he were just a little bit brighter, he might have rated as highly as AG. But Sammy's not smart enough to take on Porn, let alone take down Roe. So, on that score, we dodge a bullet for now.

Correct me if I'm wrong but don't cabinet appointments have to be approved, ratified, something along those lines by Congress? I don't see a Democratic controlled Congress supporting a Secretary of Education nominee whose has been a vocal critic of evolution.

I could see Secretary of Agriculture however. He held that job in Kansas before he was elected to Congress.

He's the king of earmarks, (which is nothing more than legalized kickbacks) and its biggest critic. it should shock no one if he's on the take. If you want this shit to stop, support porkbusters. link

Is this Senator the the same congressman who was attempting to get federal funding for the great Alaskan "Bridge to Nowhere"?

Yup. Washington Post Article.

I smell Democratic landslide in 2008!

Democrat incompetence is preferable to Republican idiocy...

It seems to run in the family. From NY TIMES:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 — Ben Stevens is often said by Alaskans to be the spitting image of his father, Senator Ted Stevens. They have the same broad forehead, wide-set eyes and compact physique. They share the same rough-hewn personality, seemingly always spoiling for a fight.

Now, father and son share a new, unwelcome distinction. Both are under investigation by the Justice Department over their ties to an Alaska businessman who has confessed to bribing public officials. Full Article.




The authorities at the Stevens home in Girdwood, Alaska.

FBI Confirms Stevens Probe. ARTICLE.