Alaska Political Corruption Probe - Management of Corruption Investigation

Management of Corruption Investigation

It later emerged that the investigation of political corruption in Alaska was being managed not by the Alaska U.S. Attorney's office, but rather by the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., with FBI agents working out of the FBI building in downtown Anchorage acting as lead investigators. The FBI raids on legislative offices on August 31 and September 1 involved dozens of extra FBI agents brought up from the Lower 48, but sent home after the initial round of searches and interviews. Other agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, were also involved.

The Public Integrity Section, created in 1976, is charged with investigation of election fraud, misconduct by federal judges, and corruption of elected officials in all levels of government — federal, state, and local. While U.S. Attorney offices also investigate and prosecute public corruption cases, because U.S. Attorneys are political appointees in local jurisdictions, they are sometimes recused from particular cases.

Brooke Miles, then-executive director of the Alaska Public Offices Commission, reported that the FBI began to collect public campaign reports and financial disclosure records on selected Alaska legislators perhaps a year prior to the raids, and returned at the start of 2006 to obtain such records for all legislators.