Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

MEMORANDUM OF DAVID E. STEVENS

ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT
CONFIDENTIAL

does believe that Senator DeConcini's action was courageous in his support of a major employer in Arizona and believes that Senator McCain left "at the first sign of trouble." He indicated that he sent a copy of his October 26, 1990 letter to Senator DeConcini because he had not been contacted by the Committee and he believed that there was a information. greater chance that the Committee would consider his views.

boume aware of

I asked Mr. Stevens to describe any contacts or discussions he had after sending his "letter of support" to Senator DeConcini. He stated that he received a call from Senator DeConcini personally on Monday, November 26, 1990. Mr. Stevens said Senator DeConcini thanked him for his support and asked Mr. Stevens if he had heard anything from the Committee in response to his October 26, 1990 letter. Mr. Stevens indicated that he had received no response from the Committee. Senator DeConcini then asked Mr. Stevens if he would mind if the Senator's staff brought his October 26, 1990 letter to the attention of the Committee and Mr. Stevens replied that he didn't mind, and in fact he had hoped that the Committee would consider his views in that letter. Mr. Stevens explained to me that his October 26, 1990 letter to Senator Howell Heflin and his November 16, 1990 letter to Senator DeConcini were both addressed to the United States Senate in Washington, D.C. to indicated to Senator DeConcini that he found it curious that he received no responsefrom the Committee in four weeks yet Senator DeConcini responded to his November 16, 1990 in just over one week. Senator DeConcini stated that the lack of attention paid to Mr. Stevens' October 26, 1990 letter by the Committee was just another example how he was being treated unfairly throughout the investigation, and he went on to describe other

MEMORANDUM OF DAVID E. STEVENS

ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT
CONFIDENTIAL

examples. I asked Mr. Stevens to recount the examples of unfair treatment that Senator DeConcini mentioned to him. The only example that Mr. Stevens recalled was that Senator DeConcini said that Senator McCain was granted an informal meeting with the Committee prior to his deposition by Mr. Robert Bennett and that none of the other Senators were granted the same opportunity. I then asked Mr. Stevens if it was his opinion that the investigation undertaken by Robert Bennett and his staff unfairly treated Senator DeConcini or any of the other Senators. Mr. Stevens hesitated, refused to answer this question, and then asked to meet privately with his attorney. Upon returning, I asked Mr. Stevens if he believed that I was being unfair in the handling of the interview with him on June 7, 1990. He said that he did not believe that I was unfair in the handling of this interview. Additionally, when I contacted Mr. Stevens on December 4, 1990 to arrange this interview, Mr. Stevens voluntarily offered that he in no way meant to discredit my efforts in the June 7, 1990 interview.

Mr. Stevens continued to describe his telephone conversation with Senator DeConcini on November 26, 1990. He stated that Senator DeConcini suggested there were several ways in which Mr. Stevens' October 26, 1990 letter could be brought to the Committee's attention. Senator DeConcini indicated that one of his staff members would contact Mr. Stevens to discuss the particulars. Mr. Stevens received a phone call on November 27. 1990 from Gene Karp, Senator DeConcini's aide, who suggested that an affidavit be prepared and signed by Mr. Stevens to which Mr. Stevens agreed. Mr. Karp asked some specific questions of Mr. Stevens to solicit information that would be included in the

MEMORANDUM OF DAVID E. STEVENS

ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT
CONFIDENTIAL

affidavit. Mr. Karp then drafted the affidavit dated November 27, 1990 (Exhibit 4) and sent it to Mr. Stevens via Federal Express. Mr. Stevens received the affidavit on November 28, 1990. He made a handwritten change to Item No. 1 deleting the incorrect reference dering the specified time period. that he was the Tax Director of Lincoln Savings initialed the change, then signed the affidavit and had it notarized. He returned the affidavit to Mr. Karp. Upon receiving the affidavit, Mr. Karp called Mr. Stevens on November 30, 1990 and said that the affidavit would be "cleaner" without the line out correction made by Mr. Stevens. He also suggested adding a comment stating, "As the Tax Director of ACC, I was responsible for IRS audits, including the 1984-1985 audit of American Continental Corporation." Mr. Karp made those changes and sent the corrected affidavit to Mr. Stevens which he received on Saturday,

decided to wait until Monday to execute

December 1, 1999 (Exhibit 5). Mr. Stevens was unable to execute the affidavit on Saturday the affidavit since there was Notary at work.

[ocr errors]

since he could not locate a Notary Public. Before he could execute the corrected affidavit on Monday, December 1990, he was contacted by Houston Fuller, GAO Investigator assigned to the Committee. Mr. Stevens believed he could not execute the revised affidavit as he had, in fact, been contacted by the Committee. He called Mr. Karp and explained that the original affidavit would have to be used. that he wouldn't execute the revised affidavit

I asked Mr. Stevens if he had ever contributed to or worked for Senator DeConcini's

political campaigns, and he said that he had not. He also indicated that until the November 26% 16, 1990 phone discussion with Senator DeConcini and the subsequent phone calls with Mr. Karp, he had no contact with the Senator or his staff at any time.

MEMORANDUM OF DAVID E. STEVENS

ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT
CONFIDENTIAL

I then attempted to understand at what point Mr. Stevens first became aware of information that ultimately led to his theory that it was Senator McCain's intention to only reimburse ACC for his personal use of corporate aircraft and not for his family members. At this time, Mr. Stevens gave to me a copy of a schedule he prepared in October, 1990. The schedule entitled "Senator John McCain and Family Schedule of Airplane Flights" (Exhibit 6) lists all flights currently known to Mr. Stevens. The schedule includes flight information by year and lists the date of the flight, passengers, destination, the IRS value for such flights, and the dates of reimbursement. The IRS valuation portion was derived Treas Reys 1.ii-21

[ocr errors]

from the Internal Revenue Service Code Section-61-21. Mr. Stevens uses the IRS valuation

simply because this was the method used by the IRS in assessing the value of personal use acknowledges of corporate aircraft. He concedes that there may be other appropriate methods by which to value personal usage of corporate aircraft and is not familiar with any rules promulgated by the House of Representatives or Senate relative to establishing value for personal use of corporate aircraft. As to the 1984 and 1985 flight information on this schedule, it agrees with schedules that Mr. Stevens attached to various correspondence to J. Smith and Chris Koch in 1989 (Exhibits 9 and 11). The 1986 flight information was derived from Exhibit 7 which was prepared in December, 1986 with certain modifications made by Mr. Stevens. The charter flight information came from Senator McCain's voluntary submission of additional flights and payment thereof in a letter dated June 30, 1989 (Exhibit 13).

The summary totals on Mr. Stevens' schedule of airplane flights indicates a total IRS value of $13,115.86 to which Mr. Stevens adds the payments made by Senator McCain on June

MEMORANDUM OF DAVID E. STEVENS

ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT
CONFIDENTIAL

30, 1989 for flights that were not included in the IRS charge column to arrive at a modified IRS charge of $16,870.46. Total reimbursements made by Senator McCain were $15,433.06 for a difference from the modified IRS charge of $1,437.40. Mr. Stevens stated that the difference may not in fact represent an underpayment of the amount due since, as previously discussed, there may be other appropriate methods by which to value the personal use of corporate aircraft. Additionally, he believes that it would be reasonable to exclude the value of Megan McCain's flights since she was under two years of age. This would reduce the scheduled IRS charge by approximately $2,500.

Mr. Stevens pointed out that Senator McCain made a timely reimbursement to ACC on three occasions: flight of April 4, 1985 reimbursed on February 25, 1986; flight of August 29, 1985 reimbursed on February 25, 1986; and flight of August 23, 1986 reimbursed on August 18, 1986. In these three cases, Senator McCain was also accompanied on the flights by his wife and baby sitter, as well as his daughter on two of the three flights. Mr. Stevens also stated that the reimbursements were specifically only related to Senator McCain's flights by notations on the copies of the reimbursement checks. As further support to his theory, Mr. Stevens states that all other reimbursements for Senator McCain and his family's flights were not made until after the ACC bankruptcy and the bad publicity abou! Charles Keating and ACC activities in Spring, 1989.

We then reviewed the series of events surrounding Senator McCain's travel reimbursement. Mr. Stevens noted that he became Tax Director of ACC in September, 1986. As Tax

« AnteriorContinuar »