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A watchdog group continues to call on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release documents from a four-year investigation of Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.). Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) previously filed Freedom of Information Act requests and administrative appeals seeking information about why the DOJ did not bring charges against Mollohan.In 2006, the DOJ and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launched an investigation on Mollohan and his connections to five non-profit organizations he created that were managed by close friends and real estate partners.Mollohan allegedly directed more than $250 million in earmarks to the non-profits...

  Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-MI) was defeated in a Democratic primary yesterday. Kilpatrick was one of six members of Congress investigated by the Office of Congressional Ethics and the House Ethics Committee for accepting a corporate-sponsored Caribbean junket in November 2008. I attended the event in St. Maarten before organizers had me detained by the Police Korps of St. Maarten. The investigations were launched on the basis of my photographs, audio recordings and other evidence of sponsorship by companies like Citigroup. The Ethics Committee admonished Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), leading him to resign his post as Chairman of...

Even as Attorney General Eric Holder has defanged the Public Integrity section of the Justice Department, and snuffed out prosecutions of members of Congress, he claimed today in Paris that “combating corruption is one of the highest priorities of the Department of Justice.” Ironically, Holder’s remarks were delivered in support of international efforts to combat bribery. Holder bragged: U.S. law enforcement has pursued bribe payers of all stripes: large corporations and small companies; powerful CEOs and low-level sales agents; U.S. companies and foreign issuers; citizens and foreign nationals; direct payers and intermediaries. If Holder can go after “low-level sales agents,”...

Political reporter Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post has initiated a new “award,“ which, in his words, “honors, so to speak, that person, place or thing that had the most terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.” The judge considered the Redskins Albert Haynesworth, and the bureaucrats on whose watch the Gulf oil spill occurred. According to Cilliza: But in the end, they were all in a race for second place. Rep. Alan Mollohan, a West Virginia Democrat who was defeated in Tuesday's primary, was our runaway selection.Mollohan had held his state's 1st District since 1982 -- you read...

One of the classic examples of the failure of politicians to communicate with the citizenry is found in a video of Romanian tyrant Nicolae Ceausescu, giving what turned out to be his last speech to the teeming masses gathered in a square in Bucharest. Oblivious to the mood of the people, Ceausescu is at his bombastic, self-important best until he realizes that the chants from the crowd below are not praise, but something rather to the contrary. The look on his face: priceless. You could say that Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, and Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.V., have just experienced their...

As Adam notes, incumbents should take Rep. Allan Mollohan's loss of his primary as a shot across the bow but there are 13 members it should terrify. Mollohan was one of the 14 Democrats who voted for Bart Stupak's amendment in November and for health care reform on final passage. Republicans are targeting this group, accusing them of flip flopping on abortion; the GOP even has a website called Stupak's Sellouts. Already Michigan's Stupak has announced he's retiring, as has Dave Obey, the powerful Appropriations Committee Chairman from Wisconsin. The National Republican Congressional Committee singled out Mollohan, the group's first...

The returns will be coming in soon from today's Primary Elections in Nebraska and West Virginia and the Special Election in Georgia for GA-09. Here are links to the websites where the official returns will be posted by the respective Secretaries of State or local news sources: Nebraska West Virginia Georgia GA-09 And for those paying attention to the Key House Races here are the districts that will pick their Primary winners tonight. District Dem Primary Winner R-Seats Republican Incumbent or Challengers Links to All State Races Or Incumbent Main Challenger Challenger Challenger NE 2 Dem Primary Winner Incumbent Lee...

Mike Oliverio 27766 56% Alan Mollohan 21660 44% --------------------------------- 49426

Democratic Rep. Alan Mollohan has delivered for his West Virginia district for nearly three decades — steering millions of dollars in projects that have helped an anemic economy. But such earmarking by a powerful member of the House Appropriations Committee has drawn scrutiny and stirred the anti-Washington fervor coursing through this year's elections. Suddenly, Mollohan is facing his toughest challenge, his first contested primary since 1998. His rival in Tuesday's primary is state Sen. Mike Oliverio, who has criticized the agenda of President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. In a state where Republican presidential nominee John...

Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) is seeing his first Democratic primary challenger since 1992, and his name is Mike Oliverio. (Mollohan is currently running to secure his 14th term in the House of Representatives. His challenger, Mike Oliverio, currently holds a seat on the West Virginia State Senate. Recent polls show the 27 year veteran facing quite an opposition. A seat once thought would certainly be held by Mollohan is now up for contention, and Oliverio has an upper hand going into the final week of April. During the last week of January, as Oliverio prepared for a potential run for...

Thank You, Representative Alan Mollohan While Republicans in Washington stand with insurance companies and Wall Street profiteers, Alan Mollohan is on our side. Alan Mollohan just stood up to the powerful health insurance companies and their billions in profit. So now, you can’t be denied or lose coverage because you're sick, and families and small businesses will be able to afford the health insurance they need. Thank Alan Mollohan – he’s standing with us, not the powerful special interests. Sign the Thank You Card to the right

This shows what Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says is simply A PURE LIE. The most ethical Congress EVAH. After a four year investigation looking into Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) using his position to secure more than $250 million in federal funding for close friends running non-profits, the Department of Justice just closed the investigation with no action.

The Justice Department has confirmed that it has ended its investigation of Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV). The probe began after NLPC filed a Complaint with the U.S. Attorney for D.C. in February of 2006 alleging that Mollohan failed to report millions in assets on his Financial Disclosure Form (FDR) in order to conceal cozy financial relationships with recipients of earmarks he had arranged. The closing of the four-year probe by the Justice Department comes after Mollohan voted for Barack Obama’s unpopular health care plan. Has Attorney General Eric Holder now made it legal for members of Congress to earmark money...

In the upcoming congressional races, Stuart Rothenberg said 72 House seats are now in play — almost one-fifth of the total. 58 are Democratic seats, 14 Republican. That is enough to give Republicans a majority. If. Among the seats in play is Democratic Congressman Alan Mollohan of Northern West Virginia, who already is having money problems; he is however, the 24th richest member of the House. Rothenberg lists Mollohan’s seat as “leans Democratic” — a post Massachusetts election downgrade from “Democrat Favored.”

A few years ago, we wrote a series of pieces about Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WVa) who in 2006 became the target of ethics inquiries. The inquiries stemmed from the fact that between 2000 and 2004, Mollohan's net assets increased from $562,000 to at least $6.3 million. During that same time, he steered $250 million in earmarks to nonprofit groups, some of whose leaders had business relationships with him. In some cases, the earmarks involved not just worthless projects, but projects that actually harmed his district. ... In this case, however, the request may not have been necessary; the ethics committee...

Mollohan's leadership of Appropriations panel seen as possible conflictFor three years, Rep. Alan Mollohan has chaired the important Appropriations subcommittee that controls the Justice Department's $65 billion budget. At the same time, he has been under a Justice Department investigation, according to documents and two sources briefed on the probe. The investigation has centered on the West Virginia Democrat's finances and nonprofits he created and helped fund in his district, and has put him in the unusual position of wielding control over an agency at the same time it is probing his conduct and contractors he helped while in office....

Last week, media reports indicated that a vacant lot on Bald Head Island, North Carolina co-owned by Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) and his former aide Laura Kuhns, and their spouses, is going to a foreclosure auction. The lot was one of five properties co-owned by the Mollohans and Kuhnses that have been part of a controversy that prompted an on-going Justice Department investigation, and Mollohan’s resignation as Ranking Member on the House Ethics Committee in 2006.Kuhns is President and CEO of Vandalia Heritage Foundation, one of five nonprofits to which Mollohan has earmarked well over $100 million. The cozy relationships...

Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) has been under investigation for more than three years after NLPC exposed his cozy relationships with the recipients of earmarks that he sponsored. Yet, as chairman of an Appropriations subcommittee, he has jurisdiction over the budget of the Justice Department, which includes the FBI, the very entity that is investigating him. Mollohan claims he recused himself in a January 2007 letter to the full Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI) but he refuses to release the letter. Republicans say they have never seen it.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is AWOL on the issue, having said nothing since she...

Members of Congress recently under scrutiny by federal authorities: ___ Senate Republicans: _Ted Stevens of Alaska, sixth term. Stevens is under a federal investigation for his relationship with Bill Allen, an oil field services contractor who was convicted this year of bribing state lawmakers. Agents from the FBI and Internal Revenue Service searched the senator's Alaska home on Monday. ___ House Republicans: _Don Young of Alaska, 18th term. Young is under federal investigation as part of an ongoing corruption probe, according to a federal law enforcement official. Part of the Young investigation involves his campaign finance practices. _John Doolittle of...

Talk about brazen! Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa is introducing an amendment to legislation funding the Department of Justice that would set aside $1 million to investigate the very lawmaker charged with marshalling that bill through the House. King circulated a "Dear Colleague" letter Wednesday asking lawmakers to support his amendment to "dedicate one million dollars to the ongoing FBI investigation of" Rep. Alan B. Mollohan - King avoids naming the West Virginia Democrat directly. "My amendment makes no assumptions as to guilt or innocence; the details of the investigation are properly left to the FBI," King wrote to...