Rep. Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham (R-Calif.) isn’t the only powerful Republican lawmaker on the Hill to have some dubious business deals of late. There’s also Alaska’s Sen. Ted Stevens (R).
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) made $822,000 last year from the sale of a controversial real estate investment with an Anchorage developer who had obtained a huge federal contract with his help, records show.
In 1997, Stevens invested $50,000 with developer Jonathan B. Rubini. Last year, at Stevens’ request, Rubini and his partner bought back the senator’s interests in their deals for $872,000, according to Senate financial disclosure forms made public Tuesday.
About three years after he made that investment, Stevens helped Rubini secure a $450-million Air Force housing contract. The senator had no financial interest in that deal.
The details here look almost as bad as the Cunningham house deal. In this Alaskan case, Stevens, a powerful senator, received a stunning return on a modest investment. Then, using his influence on the Hill, Stevens turned around and helped save a $450-million military housing contract for the Anchorage businessman who made him wealthy in the first place.
Stevens and his investments have been the subject of a fact-finding inquiry by the Senate Ethics Committee for over a year.
If Dems are interested in using corruption, abuse of power, and non-existent ethics enforcement as a campaign issue in 2006, the Republicans are giving them plenty of political ammunition.