Senator's financial clerk testifies

Hands over data in Stevens probe

1 Aug 2007 // A Senate clerk who helped maintain Senator Ted Stevens's personal financial records was recently called before a federal grand jury in a public corruption investigation that the IRS and the Interior Department have joined.

Barbara Flanders, who serves as a financial clerk for Stevens on the Commerce Committee, testified in the past several weeks and provided documents regarding the senator's bills, according to an attorney in the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity because grand jury matters are secret by law.

Investigators are scrutinizing Stevens's relationship with oil field services contractor Bill Allen, who helped oversee a complicated renovation project that more than doubled the size of Stevens's 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 Stevens's home Monday, photographing and videotaping its contents and leaving with a garbage bag full of unidentified items.

Stevens, 83, is the longest-serving Republican in Senate history. He has denied any wrongdoing and said he paid for all the improvements himself. He said he worries that the looming investigation could have political consequences.

Flanders is a longtime aide who helps ensure that Stevens's bills are paid and his personal affairs are in order, the attorney said. She was questioned about the improvement project and how the bills were paid.

Reached by telephone yesterday, Flanders would not discuss her testimony or describe her duties involving Stevens's personal accounts.

Spokesmen for Stevens had no comment on the subpoena or Flanders's 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 Stevens, and that focus appears to be narrowing.

Watchdog groups called for Stevens to step down, at least temporarily, from his posts on the Senate's Commerce and Appropriations committees.

"There is growing evidence that Senator Stevens may have used his powerful perch on the Appropriations Committee to direct tens of millions of dollars of earmarks to benefit family, friends, business partners, and former staff," said Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. The comments were made in a letter to the Senate's Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

McConnell has not said whether he would ask Stevens to temporarily step down.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal watchdog group, called it "imperative that no member under federal investigation be involved in the oversight or appropriations of any agency involved in investigating that member."

The group referred to Stevens's membership on the Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Justice Department.

The Justice Department's probe into Allen's relationships has led to charges against state lawmakers and contractors. Last year, FBI raids on the offices of several Alaska lawmakers included Stevens's son, former state Senate president Ben Stevens. Neither the US senator nor his son has been charged.