DISCLOSURE REPORTS: No indication that Alaska senator is target of any investigation.
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Stevens disclosed Thursday that he has asked the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee to review his latest financial disclosure reports.
The annual reports, which detail lawmakers' personal financial holdings and assets, were due May 15 and scheduled for public release Thursday. But Stevens' report was not among them.
Instead, the longest serving Republican in the Senate was one of nine senators who got extensions.
Aaron Saunders, a spokesman for Stevens, said the extension was needed because the ethics panel review "is still ongoing."
He declined to say anything more about the matter.
Ethics reviews of lawmakers' financial reports are unusual unless they are under a legal cloud.
Stevens, in his sixth term, recently disclosed that he has been asked to preserve financial records in connection with a Justice Department bribery investigation of several leading political figures in Alaska, including his son, former state Senate President Ben Stevens.
His office has declined to say whether the elder Stevens talked with investigators from the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, which is conducting the probe.
The FBI has questioned contractors who performed work on Stevens' Girdwood residence, a job overseen by his friend and then Veco Corp. head Bill Allen, who has pleaded guilty to bribing state legislators.
There has been no indication so far that Stevens, who faces re-election next year, is the direct target of any investigation.
However, in delaying the release of his financial disclosure report this week, Stevens was in company with at least five others who face legal snags, including Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., who faces a federal probe in connection with the rental of a building he owns, and Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., whose Virginia home was recently raided in connection with the ongoing Jack Abramoff investigation.
