As I understand it, when the going gets tough, the FBI gets tougher. The standards to become an FBI agent are exceptionally high and with that genius that is hired, to learn to do more with less is apart of their package.

I predict it won't be long before the FBI adds to its investigation any sleazy conduct that might emerge from Stevens if he tampers with their budget. This nation does have charges associated with being vindictive and Stevens if he keeps it up will learn in his old age how unwise it is to take-on federal law enforcement! For example, a sitting senator under investigation for corruption that then in any manner interferes with the FBI's budget might be charged with obstruction of justice and extortion!

Stevens' greatest flaw is he took for granted he never would get caught. Those who get cocky so keep pushing the envelope on their crimes, always get caught! Stevens has taken for granted he is above the law! I am related to a famous investment banking family and they stopped investing in any company with products to be sold to the US federal government three decades ago, because corruption has run rampant in government contracting all that time. That was approximately ten years into Stevens' becoming a senator and becoming familiar with how to abuse his position to line his own bank account.

About 8 years ago one of my friends (a business mentor) closed down a domestic hedge fund which had been a rush to quality as a result of the Asian market crisis. My friend started a new hedge fund with a red herring that permitted he make overseas investments. He was contacted by a former senator who was to become an investor in the new fund, and had participated in the last 2 hedge funds and before that a Chinese telecom investment banking deal. The former senator who came from a wealthy family didn't just want to become a repeat customer but stated Senator Stevens was considering investing in the new fund, too. My friend wasn't sure of the origin of Senator Stevens' millions of wealth, but was led to believe it came from brokering real estate deals on the side while being a sitting senator. The tone in my friend's voice and the manner in which he said it told he wasn't convinced the money was made on the up-and-up though it wasn't his job to question this. For a hedge fund manager it is always assumed that if money weren't made legally by an elected official--a person in the public eye, then law enforcement would have caught the criminal before they could invest. Also, my friend's hedge fund Stevens was to invest in was closed many years ago and he brought many of his old investors into his next venture, for which Stevens might be one of them. (I am afraid to ask because our friendship was exploited by Dustin Foggo (and coconspirator Brent Wilkes) and my friend's life was turned upside down because of it. I had wondered who could have introduced my friend to such shady people and am now rather convinced Senator Stevens was the intermediary.)

Looking at the percentage cuts (or finder's & closing fees) Stevens could have gotten from the RE purchases his earmarks financed that already were disclosed to be under investigation, suggests that to have amassed the many millions Stevens wanted to put into my friend's fund 8 years ago could have taken at least 2 decades! Hence, I am rather convinced Stevens 3 decades ago or even earlier was abusing his post as a senator to personally enrich himself! I suspect there is a statute of limitations on a majority of the illicit transactions and that the senator can't be charged for many of the RE deals, but this doesn't mean they can't be used in court as evidence to establish a pattern to support the charges of the crimes not subject to statute of limitations.

On hindsight this many years later, the selection of a hedge fund is noteworthy because at the time the SEC didn't regulate them and still, hasn't the oversight it has sought to regulate them. My friend's next venture while not a hedge fund, too, isn't regulated by the SEC to this day, so the odds are greatest Senator Stevens did become an investor in the next venture, too. While my friend's businesses weren't regulated by the SEC, they are watched by the IRS! Business tax returns would show what the senator--a shareholder with XX shares received as distributions. If the senator failed to report that income on his tax returns in an attempt to conceal sleazy RE deals, the FBI will discover this!

Senator Stevens' actions to invest in businesses not regulated by the SEC suggest he was looking for more than just a good financial instrument picker, and might have been trying to conceal his net worth because it had grown so tremendously while his job already for so many decades was as a senator making far less salary.

The more the senator fights and the more he abuses his Appropriations position to threaten budget cuts, the more likely the FBI will research decades of earmarks even if they exceed the statute of limitations on the chance they can be used as evidence in trial.

Ted Stevens regards himself as a victim of the FBI, and complains that he is not getting the respect due him. He certainly should remove himself from appropriations but of course he won't and don't count on the Senate to remove him.

No matter how low George W. Bush sinks in the public esteem, he will always be able to say he outranks Congress.

Too bad the voter can't cast a ballot against the whole corrupt mess.

Vote against the incumbent.