The senior Democrat who recently stepped down from the Ethics Committee, Alan Mollohan (D-WV), is under scrutiny from the FBI in both West Virginia and Washington for possibly steering federal money to projects that financially benefitted him. Raw Story reports on a Wall Street Journal article that details the new direction of this probe:

Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV)bought a 300-acre farm with the head of a small defense contractor that had won a $2.1 million contract from funds that the congressman added to a 2005 spending bill last year. The joint purchase of the farm, which sits on the Cheat River in West Virginia, is the most direct tie yet disclosed between Rep. Mollohan and a beneficiary of the federal spending he has steered toward his home state. It raises new questions about possible conflicts of interest by Rep. Mollohan and his use of such spending.

For future appropriating congressmen: Don’t jointly purchase any property with recipients of your federal earmarks on Cheat River.