Sen. Ted Stevens Subject of FBI Investigation

The Anchorage Daily News reports that the senior-most Republican in the Senate, Ted Stevens of Alaska, is currently the subject of an FBI corruption investigation which is focusing on a series of cost-free improvements to his Anchorage residence. A contractor apparently jacked-up the Stevens home and built an entire new floor underneath it, all as a gift to Stevens. The same contractor is believed to have paid almost a quarter million dollars in consulting fees to Stevens’s son Ben, formerly the president of the Alaska state senate. In October of last year, the Seattle Times reported that the Justice Department had refused to allow Stevens to participate in the selection process for a new U.S. attorney in Anchorage out of concern that he was the target of a pending FBI probe.