Yesterday the senior Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, Alan Mollohan of W. Va., resigned from the panel amid controversy over his behavior on House Appropriations Committee.

The Wall Street Journal reported two weeks ago that Mollohan steered millions of dollars to nonprofit groups in his district _ with much of the money going to organizations run by people who contribute to the lawmaker's campaigns.

Also, a conservative group filed a complaint with federal prosecutors this year questioning whether Mollohan correctly reported his assets on financial disclosure forms.

However, that's not the real-eye opener. The thing that seems a little odd is how Mollohan's net worth has increased from 2000 to 2004.

At the center of the NLPC complaint is an exponential increase in Mollohan's net worth between 2000 and 2004 that was due in large part to a series of real estate investments. In 2000, Mollohan's personal financial disclosure statement showed him with $565,000 in household assets and $465,000 in debt; four years later his household assets were estimated at between $6.3 million and $24.9 million with debts of between $3.7 million and $16.5 million. (Mollohan has said his worth is much closer to the lower end of those estimates.)

That sort of growth is reminiscent of Sen. Hillary Clinton's foray into cattle futures in the '80s, turning a $10,000 investment into more than $100,000 in months. It should also be noted that Mollohan's partners in these real estate investments are the same people who were getting money steered to their organizations by Mollohan's work on the House Appropriations Committee.

Corruption in Congress is nothing new. Republicans are currently more susceptible to it because they're in charge, but with the out-of-control earmarking process, being the majority party isn't really necessary. There could be a Pulitzer waiting for a West Virginia paper interested in looking, deeply, into Mollohan's finances. On the surface, something doesn't seem quite right.

What really is outrageous, however, is Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi's comments in the wake of Mollohan's decision to step down.

"The attacks are an attempt to deflect attention from the long list of Republican criminal investigations, indictments, plea agreements and resignations which have resulted from the reported long-term and extensive criminal enterprise run out of House Republican leadership offices," she said. [emphasis added]

I haven't seen much made of that particular comment (which appears to be new -- to me at least) by Pelosi in the blogs or other media, but that's certainly a step up from her standard "culture of corruption" rhetoric. Pelosi is likening the Republican party to the mob.

Pelosi's comment is going just a little too far -- even for an irresponsible demagogue such as herself.