DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what's going on is that Senator Stevens really has been hard to find today, Wolf. In fact, I want to set the scene for you.
Take a look at some pictures from outside of Senator Stevens' main office here on the Capitol complex. Reporters, cameramen, they've been hanging out waiting to find him and to talk to him all day long.
They've never seen him.
In fact, Senator Stevens has been actively trying to avoid us all day long. He did attend the Republicans' weekly lunch in the Capitol, but he slipped in and out a back door, down a back stairway in the Capitol.
I found him at the bottom of those stairs and really had to kind of run after him to get some questions to him. He was pretty angry. Take a listen.
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SEN. TED STEVENS (R), ALASKA: I put out a statement and I'm not saying anything to anybody beyond that statement.
BASH: Can you say, sir, why the federal agents went to your House or what they took?
STEVENS: Can you understand English? That's the only statement I'm going to make.
BASH: I do understand that sir, but obviously this is a very important issue, when federal agents and IRS agents come to the home of a U.S. senator.
STEVENS: I understand you're recording this, but I told you again I made the statement. It's issued, that's what my lawyers told me to say, and that's all I'm going to say.
and she seems to have picked up on Senator Ted's careful parsing, though she doesn't quite make it clear.
BASH: Well, there's an Alaska oil executive who is a big financial contributor to Senator Stevens, who just a couple of months ago pleaded guilty to bribing state officials. And what the feds apparently are trying to figure out is whether that executive's company, called VECO, whether that -- that company at all improperly paid for some of the renovations, big renovations, on Senator Stevens' House outside of Anchorage. The one that the feds actually did raid yesterday.
It's unclear whether that is the case. And I should say that Senator Stevens has very carefully in the past said that he and his wife paid every bill that was presented to them.
Right. Every bill that was presented to them.
