The Culture of Corruption

Democrat-style

Mollohan, who chairs the House panel which controls the Justice Department budget (including the FBI), has been under investigation by the FBI for a rather knotty mess of nonprofits, friends and real estate deals that appear to have made a lot of money for a lot of people.

According to documents filed by his campaign with the Federal Elections Commission, the law firm Kellogg Huber Hansen Todd Evan has collected $140,000 from his campaign. The campaign says that as of Dec. 31, 2006, it owed the firm another $20,000,

Mollohan has said that because of the investigation he would recuse himself from decisions concerning the FBI's budget, but some believe that doesn't resolve the conflict of interest.

"Just the fact that he's not going to micromanage the FBI's budget doesn't mean he can't play havoc with the Justice Department budget," conservative watchdog Ken Boehm told CNSNews.com earlier this month. "When the Justice Department goes to his subcommittee - and they need all sorts of approval out of his subcommittee for other spending things and other things they want - they're going to a man they're investigating," he said.

Hat tip: The Blogfather.