Sen. Arlen Specter said Thursday that he would ask the Senate ethics committee to investigate whether any rules were violated when he directed almost $50 million to companies and institutions that employed the husband of one of his top aides as a lobbyist.

Specter, R-Pa., told reporters that he did not believe that he or anyone in his office had done anything wrong. He acknowledged that he had not sorted out all the actions of his aide in the approval of the spending.

His office later issued a statement saying the senator was asking for the ethics investigation "to satisfy all conceivable concern."

His comments came in response to a USA Today article Thursday reporting that companies employing lobbyist Michael Herson - the husband of a senior Specter aide - had been the recipients of $48.9 million in funding "earmarked" by Specter.

Specter used earmarking 13 times in the last three years to allocate funds to clients of Herson's firm, American Defense International, the newspaper reported.

Herson is the husband of Vicki Siegel Herson, Specter's legislative assistant for appropriations. USA Today reported that she handles Specter's work on the Senate Appropriations Committee and its defense subcommittee, where the earmarks in question originated.

Herson's lobbying firm collected $1.8 million in fees from the clients since 2002, the paper reported. In a statement, Specter said that Herson never lobbied him or his office and that others from the companies and institutions - including Drexel University - had asked for the money.

"If you take a look at the facts, there is no violation of either law or ethics," the statement said.

Siegel Herson's role, if any, in the earmarking remains unclear.

Siegel Herson, who uses just Siegel professionally, has declined to talk to reporters. Specter said he spoke with her Thursday but had been unable to determine precisely her involvement in the allocations that went to her husband's clients.

"I'm going to check it out further," he said Thursday.

He added, "There's no indication from anything I know that this occurred."

Specter said that Siegel Herson never disclosed to him that her husband was working for the recipients of his earmarks - nor did she suggest to him that she should recuse herself from any earmark decisions involving clients of her husband's.

Specter said he did not know whether Herson had spoken to his wife about his clients that received the funding.

Citing her child-care obligations, Specter said, as of six months ago Siegel Herson had stopped doing appropriations and was working only one day per week.

Specter said she told him that he might have been in the same room with Herson three times, all in large gatherings. The senator said he would be unable to recognize Herson.

The largest of the earmarks went to Drexel - a total of $17.5 million in the last two fiscal years - for an initiative to link the military's computer systems.

Other firms receiving significant earmarked appropriations were Power+Energy Corp. of Ivyland, Pa.; 3e Technologies International of Maryland; Gestalt L.L.C. of Camden, N.J.; Gentex Corp. of Carbondale, Pa.; and California-based Universal Space Network Inc.

Specter reviewed the lists and said he personally had met only "infrequently" with officials of Drexel among all the firms on the list.

All of the earmarks paid for defense-related purchases of research, software and oxygen masks.

In each case, the senator's office said, someone other than Herson sought the earmarking. He released a statement naming the lobbyists and others who asked for the money.

In a December news release announcing $56 million worth of earmarks, including $17 million for these firms, Specter said: "These projects, key to our nation's defense, will be invaluable in our continuing war on terror."

Earmarks have been controversial because the directed spending is rarely challenged. Defense earmarks played a role in the recent bribery conviction of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif.

"Earmarks usually are slipped into appropriation bills without a vote, without debate and without notice," said Roberta Baskin, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit watchdog group that monitors lobbying. "That's why a seat on the Appropriations Committee is so coveted."

"If these projects had been debated on the floor," Baskin said, "there's a good chance someone would have checked the sponsor of the projects and checked who would benefit from it. But that's not how the earmarking process works. It's all done in secrecy."

Specter argued that he had "long-standing concern" about earmarks.

"In my capacity as chairman of the appropriations subcommittee for labor, health and human services, and education, last year I eliminated all earmarks, which amounted to $1 billion."

The senator added that he took that step because there were insufficient funds in the budget, not because he objects to earmarks, which he said produced jobs in Pennsylvania.

This is cache, read story here