GOP wants lawmaker to resign from panel

WASHINGTON — Republican leaders Friday called on Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., to step down from his ranking post on the House ethics committee because of accusations that he provided earmarks benefiting companies and individuals who helped make him a millionaire.

Mollohan called the charges "spurious" and said the accusations and the calls for him to step down are politically motivated.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that federal prosecutors have opened an investigation of Mollohan's personal financial disclosures.

The article also raised questions about earmarks Mollohan has steered to nonprofits in West Virginia in the past five years. Earmarks are special provisions included in federal spending bills.

Mollohan has not been charged with wrongdoing. He acknowledged making real-estate investments with the head of a nonprofit company that received federal money from earmarks Mollohan backed. But, he contended, he is fully "at risk" in the investments and received no favors in financing or locating the investments.

In addition to the Wall Street Journal article, the conservative National Legal and Policy Center said it filed a complaint against Mollohan on Feb. 28 with the U.S. attorney.

Sex-crime suspect

disciplined at Time

The Department of Homeland Security official arrested this week on charges of seducing a minor over the Internet faced disciplinary action at his previous workplace, Time magazine's Washington bureau, for using company equipment to download pornography, friends and former colleagues who declined to be identified said.

Federal officials would not say whether the incident came to the attention of investigators who conducted a background check in 2004 on Brian Doyle, 55.

Originally hired as a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration in 2002, he was detailed to Homeland Security the next year and became deputy press secretary cleared to handle top-secret material in November 2005, a department spokeswoman said.

Doyle resigned Friday, said Russ Knocke, a department spokesman.

Doyle, a Time Washington bureau employee from 1975 to 2001, took a voluntary early-retirement package, Time spokesman Ty Trippet said. Trippet would not comment further.

Defense projects have

major cost overruns

Significant cost overruns affect 36 of the Defense Department's major weapons systems, including key fighter-jet, ship and satellite programs, according to a Pentagon report released Friday.

The report said 25 programs — including three satellites, the Army's Future Combat system and upgrades of the Bradley fighting vehicle and two helicopters — had cost increases of more than 50 percent from their initial estimates.

Eleven programs, including the Joint Strike Fighter, the F/A-18 Navy fighter, a new submarine, and two chemical demilitarization programs, now cost at least 30 percent more than their original estimates.

The number of programs on the list with significant cost increases is higher than usual because of a change in the reporting requirement directed by the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.

Also

The Senate voted 59-34 Friday to confirm Dorrance Smith as the new Pentagon spokesman, months after President Bush bypassed the Senate to install him in the job.

Compiled from The Washington Post, Bloomberg News and

The Associated Press