FBI visits auditor

State Auditor and Inspector Jeff McMahan said FBI agents who met with him Thursday in his state Capitol office have not told him whether he is the target of an investigation.

The agents spent about 90 minutes in the auditor's office before leaving at 10:30 a.m. At least one was carrying a briefcase and a manila envelope.

It couldn't be determined whether the agents served a search warrant. McMahan's spokeswoman, Terri Watkins, repeatedly declined to answer whether a search warrant was delivered either to the office or McMahan's home.

"There's nothing I can provide you with on that. Call the FBI,” Watkins said.

"No records have been seized from this office,” she said. "They did not seize anything, period.”

An FBI spokesman said it is agency policy to neither confirm nor deny active investigations.

Watkins would not say whether McMahan or anyone else in the office provided records voluntarily. She declined to make McMahan available for comment after the FBI agents left.

Watkins initially said no one in the auditor's office received a subpoena. She later declined to say whether anyone received a subpoena.

Thursday is believed to be the third time the FBI has interviewed McMahan.

McMahan previously said an agent talked to him more than a year ago. Watkins said the FBI visited a second time, but didn't take any records, on June 25.

As for Thursday's visit, she said an agent called McMahan on Wednesday and said "they wanted to come by and say hi.”

She said no one in the office but McMahan was interviewed by the agents Thursday.

McMahan has been mentioned in the investigation because of his relationship with Steve Phipps, a Pittsburg County businessman.

Phipps and several associates and employees contributed heavily to McMahan's first campaign for the auditor's job in 2002.

The auditor confirmed in March that he had taken three trips with Phipps:

• A guided striper bass fishing excursion at Lake Texoma in 2002 with Phipps and then-state Auditor Clifton Scott. Phipps paid for the one-day trip.

• A trip to New Orleans, possibly in the spring of 2003, involving Phipps and