By Eric Bowen, Dominion Post

December 1, 2006

A federal watchdog group called on Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., on Thursday to avoid overseeing appropriations to the federal Department of Justice.

Mollohan is ranking minority member of the House Appropriations subcommittee that sets the budget for the Justice Department, and is expected to become chairman when the Democratic Party takes over in the House.

But Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said that Mollohan shouldn’t be involved in appropriations to the agency while he is under investigation by the FBI.

Sloan stopped short of saying Mollohan shouldn’t be appointed to chair the committee. But she said that to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, Mollohan shouldn’t be involved in discussions about the Justice Department’s budget.

“The question is whether Justice will be able to vigorously investigate Mr. Mollohan when he is responsible for their budget,” Sloan said. “Once you ’re the appropriators, you have a lot of influence over what money goes to a department. I don’t see how that all happens objectively.”

Reached Thursday by phone, Mollohan said he had no response to the group’s statement. Pressed further about whether his position overseeing the Justice Department is a conflict of interest, he said again that he has no response.

The group also called for two Republican members of the Appro- priations Committee — Jerry Lewis and John Doolittle, both of California — to recuse themselves from appropriations to the Justice Department.

The U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia will not confirm that Mollohan is under investigation. The office has filed no case or indictment against the congressman, according to the U.S. Attorney’s media office.

But several local nonprofit groups funded largely by federal money earmarked by Mollohan turned over documents earlier this year after being subpoenaed by the FBI. The agency requested documents from as many as five nonprofit groups, including the West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation and Vandalia Heritage Foundation, both based in Fairmont.

The investigation stems from a complaint filed in February by the conservative National Legal and Policy Center.

The center said that Mollohan had failed to report all of his assets on his congressional financial disclosure forms. And the group said that Mollohan had improperly earmarked money to several local nonprofit organizations that he helped found.

After the allegations came out, Mollohan resigned from his post as the ranking Democrat on the House Ethics Committee. And he later restated several of his assets on his financial disclosures.

Ken Boehm, chairman of the center, said Thursday that he agrees that Mollohan should not oversee the budget of the Justice Department while he is under investigation. Boehm said that he doesn’t think the FBI would hold back its investigation, but there is still a conflict of interest.

“Under no circumstances should you allow somebody under investigation to have leverage over the investigators in any shape or form,” Boehm said.

“Control over the purse strings, it’s leverage.”

The Dominion Post continues to investigate the allegations against Mollohan. Last month, the newspaper received a list of NASA grants to the Institute for Scientific Research. ISR is one of the nonprofit groups that was targeted in the FBI probe.

The Dominion Post plans to file another Freedom of Information Act request with NASA for more detailed information about the $102 million Mollohan has earmarked to the agency to build its Fairmont headquarters.