PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Rep. Allen Mollohan of West Virginia is being investigated. Reportedly,

Mollohan’s household assets exponentially grew (from $565K in ’00 to at least $6.3M in’ 04).

In addition, the article notes that one of his non-profit groups is “funded almost entirely through provisions he put into annual spending bills.” NRCC Chmn Tom Reynolds called today for Mollohan to step down as ranking member of the ethics cmte until an investigation is complete.

If this story has legs, it could muddy the Dem narrative of the GOP culture of corruption. It’s possible Mollohan accrued a quick fortune from real estate acquisitions and just improperly reporting his finances.

But his seniority on the Appropriations and ethics cmtes raises larger and fundamental questions about the use and abuse of earmarks. The timing also couldn’t be worse for Dems — with Tom DeLay’s resignation, a budget stalemate and immigration exposing fissures in the GOP.

More significant for our purposes is this observation from Don Surber:

Maybe the probe will lead nowhere but it shows a side of earmarks that has not occurred to Porkbusters as they rail against government waste.

Earmarks also can lead to insider playing. His ex-staffer Laura Kuhns now heads the Vandalia Heritage Foundation and sits on the boards of three other nonprofits that catch earmark money. Her Vandalia salary alone is $102,000 a year.

She and her husband are partners with Mollohan and his wife in five properties in Bald Head Island, N.C., worth $2 million.

Read the whole thing. It’s true of course, that large amounts of other people’s money tend to lead to corruption.

UPDATE: Reader Peter Malloy emails:

I hate to turn a good Porkbuster story into an anti-NYT screed (well, not really), but did you notice that the NYT front page (online) story does not get around to stating that Mollohan is a Democrat until the 8th paragraph? You can be certain that it it were a Republican, that fact would be in the headline.

Yes, as part of a “series of events raising troubling questions” about Republican corruption.