Ted Stevens wonders why he's being investigated

From AP:

For his first three decades as a senator, Stevens was poor by Senate standards.

In 1997, his largest assets were his savings in the Senate Credit Union, worth between $100,001 and $250,000 and three $50,001-$100,000 investments. One was in JLS Properties, which owned two properties in Alaska.

But after 1997, the year that Stevens became chairman of the Appropriations Committee, he began to leave the Senate's poorhouse.

Stevens' business partners in JLS were Alaska developers Jonathan Rubini and Leonard Hyde. The partnership initially invested in an office park near the Anchorage airport and a two-story office building.

Late in 2000, the year of the home renovations, Stevens showed he was willing to intervene for a business partner. He helped Rubini keep a $450 million contract with the Defense Department for housing on Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage.

Stevens said he got involved only when the project stalled because of the military's concerns about the contractor's financial backing by local lenders.

"It was a competitive bid and I don't get involved in competitive bids, that's for sure," Stevens said. "But I did get involved in raising a question of whether (the lenders had) a sufficient surety for a bid by an Alaska contractor on a federal contract."

While Stevens says he was a passive investor in JLS, his assets — including high-rise office buildings — soared.

In 2004, Stevens made a change that hid many of his assets. He sold JLS investments and other assets, and placed most of them in a blind trust worth between $1 million and $5 million.

The senator was granted an extension to file his disclosure report for 2006. It will be made public in mid-July.

Yes, we're all flabbergasted.