Wednesday, June 15, 2005

And another Republican shows remarkable real estate acumen.

Perhaps this is why Alan Greenspan created the real estate bubble. The LA Times gives us another lucrative deal to go along with "CunningScam". This time it was Sen Ted Stevens of Alaska.
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.

Stevens and his investments have been the subject of a fact-finding inquiry by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics that he requested following a Los Angeles Times investigation of his dealings with Rubini in late 2003. The ethics inquiry is continuing.
The honorable gentleman from Alaska tells us that,
Stevens, a member and former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has said that he never used his official position to enrich himself.
But leaves us with this fact wanting explanation.
Stevens' initial investment expanded into interests in four Rubini companies. One built and owns a high-rise office building leased for $6 million a year to an Alaska Native corporation that has received millions of dollars in no-bid Pentagon contracts, thanks to preferences Stevens wrote into defense appropriations legislation.
He seems to believe that a whole lot of people have been falling off that old turnip truck lately.

And check out Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo for a good update on CunningScam

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