April 7 (Bloomberg) -- House Speaker Dennis Hastert is calling for Representative Alan Mollohan to be replaced as the top Democrat on the House ethics panel after a newspaper report that his finances are the subject of a federal probe.

``The speaker believes the minority leader should ask Representative Mollohan to step aside from the ethics committee during this investigation,'' said Ron Bonjean, a Hastert spokesman.

The U.S. attorney's office in Washington is examining Mollohan's personal finances and whether he properly disclosed them, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

Channing Phillips, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office for the District of Columbia, didn't return a call seeking comment on the investigation.

Mollohan said in a statement that the complaint sent to the U.S. attorney was initiated by an ``ultra-conservative, politically motivated group'' called the National Legal and Policy Center, which in the past ``targeted Democrats with charges that later proved to be without merit.''

``I welcome any legitimate review of the financial disclosure statements that I have filed,'' Mollohan said.

Federal Funds

The Journal report said that Mollohan directed, or ``earmarked,'' millions of dollars in federal funds for special projects in his home state of West Virginia as a member of the House Appropriations Committee and received campaign donations from project beneficiaries.

Mollohan said the projects he supported didn't ``benefit me in any way, and they never have.''

Mollohan hasn't been accused of wrongdoing.

In remarks reported by National Journal's Congress Daily today, Hastert said that he has wondered whether a partisan dispute that has kept the ethics panel from operating for a year and a half could stem from Mollohan's concerns about a closer look at his own conduct.

``I don't know if that has anything to do with it or not, we'll see,'' Hastert said.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California defended Mollohan and said Republicans ``destroyed'' the ethics process to protect their colleagues from becoming the focus of investigations.

``The speaker should join me in directing the Ethics Committee to get to work, and not cast aspersions on the independent and distinguished ranking member,'' Pelosi said.

Framework

The ethics panel is negotiating the framework for a handful of investigations of lawmakers, including several Republicans facing allegations over their ties to Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Abramoff was sentenced to five years in prison March 29 after a Florida conviction on fraud charges and is cooperating with the Justice Department in a probe in an unrelated probe into possible bribes paid to public officials.

The ethics panel is the only committee in the House that is evenly divided between the political parties, giving Mollohan unusual influence. He has used it last year to force Republicans, who control the House, to retreat on efforts to change the rules for probes of lawmakers' behavior and to cancel plans to install a Republican aide in the traditionally non-partisan job of staff director.

Democrats said that the changes were designed to protect then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas from further scrutiny after he received three ethics rebukes from the panel.

Bonjean noted that Hastert in January asked Republican Representative Bob Ney of Ohio to step aside as chairman of the House Administration Committee amid allegations that he accepted gifts and other benefits from Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 7, 2006 19:06 EDT