DoJ urges judge to reject Stevens’ dismissal call

The government strongly urged a federal judge Monday to reject Sen. Ted Stevens’s arguments that his federal indictment is unconstitutional.

The Alaska Republican, who faces a primary on Tuesday, is seeking to have the court dismiss the seven charges against him for making false statements in Senate financial disclosure forms on the grounds that the charges violate the separation-of-powers doctrine of the Constitution.

{mosads}Stevens has pleaded not guilty to all seven charges. He says the Justice Department has overstepped its authority by attempting to enforce Senate rules.

In court filings Monday, Justice Department officials have asked Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to reject those arguments.

“This and similar arguments have been considered and rejected by the Supreme Court and the District of Columbia Circuit beginning at least a hundred years ago,” the department argues.

Stevens also argues the indictment presents a constitutional issue under the Speech and Debate clause, which is intended to prevent the executive branch from arresting lawmakers to force them to vote a certain way. And Stevens says that the evidence in the case does not meet a sufficient legal standard and is “unconstitutionally vague.”

“The indictment is far more than sufficient in providing Stevens with adequate notice of the charges he faces and to allow him to plead double jeopardy should he face the same charges in another proceeding,” the government says.

The government also asks the judge to dismiss an argument advanced by Stevens’s attorneys that a number of the charges are duplicitous.

In a separate filing, Stevens's attorneys say that the Justice Department plans to introduce "irrelevant" evidence in "an obvious attempt to smear the senator's character."

The Justice Department plans to allege that Stevens improperly incurred an undisclosed liability on a 2001 Florida real estate transaction, which the defense says bears no relationship to the allegations that Stevens failed to report more than $250,000 of gifts from the now-defunct Veco Corp. oil-services company.

Also, Stevens's attorneys say the government should drop evidence that Stevens received a generator from Bill Allen, a former executive at Veco, and that Stevens's daughter, Lily, received a discounted Jeep Cherokee from Allen and Veco. The defense calls "immaterial" allegations that Allen helped try to employ Stevens's son in Phoenix.

"Instead it is a misguided attempt to impugn Sen. Stevens and his family before the jury," his attorneys say.

The defense also says that e-mails Stevens sent do not prove a "consciousness of guilt" as the government alleges.

Stevens’s trial is set to begin Sept. 22. A pre-trial hearing on all the pending motions is scheduled for Sept. 10.