The Sen Ted Stevens Investigation Widens

TPMmuckraker:

It's official: the FBI is looking into more than Sen. Ted Stevens' Veco-overseen remodeling project. Roll Call reports that the FBI and the Department of Interior are also looking into a series of earmarks for one of Stevens' pet projects.

The project, the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seaward, Alaska, has received some $50 million in federal money since 1998. One of Stevens' former aides, Trevor McCabe, was paid $558,000 of that money for an adjacent piece of land. Federal investigators want to know more about the arrangement. ...

And I just couldn't resist pointing to this curious angle on the story the AP is floating:

The focus seems to be on the wine *

Federal agents searching the home of a Republican senator from Alaska seemed especially interested in cases of wine stored in the house. ...

He said investigators photographed individual wine bottles as well as cases of wine, as they carried out the search as part of a public corruption probe. ...

Update: Think Progress: CREW calls on Stevens to give up committee seat

TPMmuckraker:

Stevens' Financial Clerk Testifies Before Grand Jury

A Senate clerk for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) has testified before a grand jury about the remodeling of the senator's home overseen by Veco, the AP reports.

The Commerce Committee clerk, Barbara Flanders, who assisted Stevens with his personal financial records, also handed over documents related to the senator's finances and testified to what she knew about how the murky home remodeling project bills were paid.

Flanders is not the first Capital Hill staffer to be brought in to the investigation. Some of Stevens' former aides have already been questioned by the FBI. ...

TPMmuckraker's ongoing coverage of the Stevens' scandal here.