Sen. Ted Stevens released a statement in which he declares his innocence and vows to fight the charges. He also stepped down his posts as ranking member of both the Commerce Committee and the Appropriations Committee.

For some background on Sen. Stevens, I wanted to point out the utility of Sunlight’s Lawmaker Profile, which you can access through the front page of our web site. I was just toying around with Sen. Stevens’ profile and got this telling image of a cloud of his top ten career contributors:

$88,000 from VECO, the company that he is alleged to have received gifts from, and which he is said to have done favors for.

You can also dig into his personal finances, earmarks, and contracts through this tool.