Rep. Alan Mollohan (D) is airing a campaign commercial that attacks state Sen. Mike Oliverio, his opponent in the May 11 Democratic primary, for his ties to a conservative-leaning organization of state legislators.

The ad, which began airing Tuesday, responds to an Oliverio spot that criticized Mollohan’s ethics.

Mollohan’s ad says that the Justice Department exonerated him in January, when it said it closed a four-year investigation. That action “restored his good name,” a narrator says.

Then it segues to an attack on Oliverio’s involvement with the American Legislative Exchange Council, which the Mollohan ad describes as “a right-wing group that supports devastating free-trade policies that send our steel jobs overseas, right-to-work laws which threaten good-paying jobs and benefits, and schemes to gamble Social Security on Wall Street.”

Oliverio campaign manager Curtis Wilkerson said ALEC is a bipartisan organization that promotes the principles of Thomas Jefferson

“Congressman Mollohan has changed the truth to suit him,” Wilkerson said.