ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Senate clerk who helped maintain Sen. Ted Stevens’ personal financial records was recently called before a federal grand jury in a public corruption investigation that has been joined by the IRS and the Interior Department.
Barbara Flanders, who serves as a financial clerk for Mr. Stevens on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, testified in the past several weeks and provided documents regarding the senator’s bills, according to a lawyer in the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because grand jury matters are secret by law.
Investigators are scrutinizing Mr. Stevens’ relationship with oil-field services contractor Bill Allen, who helped oversee a complicated renovation project that more than doubled the size of Mr. Stevens’ home in 2000. Allen’s company, VECO Inc., won tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts. Allen has pleaded guilty to bribing Alaska lawmakers.
Federal agents raided Mr. Stevens’ home Monday, photographing and videotaping its contents and leaving with a garbage bag full of unidentified items.
Mr. Stevens, 83, is the longest-serving Republican in Senate history, joining the upper house of Congress in December 1968. He has denied any wrongdoing and said he paid for all the improvements himself, but he says he worries the looming investigation could have political consequences. His current term expires next year.
Miss Flanders is a longtime aide who helps ensure that Mr. Stevens’ bills are paid and his personal affairs are in order, the lawyer said. She was questioned about the improvement project and how the bills were paid.
Jenilee Keefe, a spokeswoman for Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii Democrat, said there was no evidence the subpoena involved committee business.
“It is a personal thing. She worked for him in another capacity,” Miss Keefe said. “Right now, we’re just not getting involved.”
Spokesmen for Mr. Stevens had no comment on the subpoena or Miss Flanders’ role in the senator’s personal finances.
The investigation grew out of a lengthy corruption probe that has ensnared several Alaska lawmakers and resulted in Allen’s guilty plea for bribery. Only recently, however, have authorities turned their focus on Mr. Stevens, and that focus appears to be narrowing.
The Interior Department’s inspector general and the Commerce Department have also joined the case to investigate Mr. Stevens’ connections with a Seward, Alaska, marine-science organization that operates the Alaska SeaLife Center, a person familiar with the probe said on the condition of anonymity because it is ongoing.
Among many items photographed in Monday’s search were cases of wine stored in Mr. Stevens’ house. Investigators photographed each case and the individual bottles, the lawyer said.
About 15 agents took photos and video of various angles of the structure, climbing onto the roof at one point. They eventually entered, and later carried out a garbage bag full of unidentifiable materials and loaded it into an unmarked white van. The curtains were drawn during most of the search.
Investigators did not raid Mr. Stevens’ home in the District, where he spends most of his time.
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