Anchorage Daily News

WASHINGTON -- Of the more than $1 million in legal fees spent by U.S. Rep. Don Young to defend in a federal criminal inquiry this past year, about $35,000 went toward a lawyer to represent his campaign manager in the same investigation.

Young's campaign paid Seattle lawyer John Wolfe to advise Steve Dougherty, his full-time campaign manager since 2000. The payment is a small portion of the $1.1 million in legal fees Young has paid since early 2007.

Young's campaign spokesman, Mike Anderson, said that it was in character for the congressman to look out for the interests of a loyal employee by paying legal bills connected to his own case.

Young "doesn't throw people out on the street," said Anderson, who also serves as Young's chief of staff. "He's loyal to a fault and he takes care of his employees."

Anderson added that the campaign's payments to Wolfe, which were made last December and January, are "nothing new. But what is being discovered is, you know what? He's not a bad guy. The grizzly bear is really a teddy bear because he takes care of his employees."

Young has declined to specify exactly what all the legal bills are for, but he is connected to several federal inquiries, including a wider-ranging federal probe into corruption in Alaska politics that included the fundraising practices of the former oil-services company Veco Corp. and its chief executive, Bill Allen. Young also is part of a separate FBI inquiry into a $10 million earmark to study a proposed highway interchange in Florida that could have benefited real estate of a campaign donor.

The congressman, who has represented Alaska since 1973, has said previously that "both the Department of Justice and my lawyers have asked that I not comment further on the investigation."

Anderson has said that the bulk of the legal expenses went toward lawyers who reviewed Young's congressional papers to determine whether they are protected under the Constitution from executive branch review, or whether they must be turned over to federal investigators.

WIDE-RANGING PROBE

Most of the money Young has spent over the past year has gone to Washington, D.C., lawyer John Dowd of Akin Gump. Dowd declined to comment Thursday. Anderson said that the only other legal payments have gone to lawyers who review the campaign for compliance with federal election law and to Wolfe, Dougherty's lawyer.

Wolfe also represents former state Senate President Ben Stevens, son of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens. Neither Stevens has been charged with any wrongdoing, but they both have been caught up in the same wide-ranging corruption probe that snagged Allen and other Veco executives. Last summer, the FBI raided Ted Stevens' home in Girdwood as part of an investigation into whether Veco paid for renovations there in 2000. Allen oversaw those renovations.

Wolfe did not return phone calls Thursday. In February, after the Daily News first reported that Wolfe had been paid by Young's campaign, he acknowledged that he was representing "an aspect" of the campaign but would not elaborate.

As campaign manager, Dougherty would be most likely to draw scrutiny for the campaign's fundraising practices, including its ties to Allen and Veco. Allen was once a major political fundraiser in Alaska politics. He pleaded guilty to bribing state lawmakers and has been a witness in the ongoing federal corruption investigation. Until this election cycle, Allen and Veco executives were Young's largest source of campaign contributions.

DELVING INTO THE PAST

Earlier this year, Young's campaign decided to take a close look at fundraising expenses from the 2006 election. Anderson said in a previous interview that they saw how some GOP candidates had been weakened by third-party attacks in 2006 -- including one of Young's close GOP colleagues, Richard Pombo of California -- and sought to guard Young from the same attacks this year.

In reviewing the 2006 campaign expenses, they discovered that Veco hadn't properly billed the campaign for its annual pig roast on Young's behalf. Campaign officials looked back several more years and determined that Veco or Allen needed to be reimbursed $37,626. A check was sent to Allen in January 2007, the campaign reported.

Both the audit and the reimbursement occurred months before they knew Allen was cooperating with federal investigators, Young's campaign has said. Allen and Veco vice president Rick Smith pleaded guilty in May 2007, more than eight months after they secretly began working for the FBI.

Allen never cashed the reimbursement check, and in January, the campaign gave the money instead to the U.S. Treasury.

Find Erika Bolstad online at adn.com/contact/ebolstad or call her in Washington, D.C., at 1-202-383-6104.

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