MInnesota Independent has the latest on Michele Bachmann, the embattled conservative Republican congresswoman whose charges that Sen. Barack Obama and unidentified members of Congress harbored “anti-American” views have hurt her in the polls.

Last week, Bachmann  said that her campaign had given a contribution from Frank Vennes Jr., an ex-con under federal investigation, to charity. MnIndy reports that FEC records indicate the charity was Minnesota Teen Challenge, “a faith-based evangelical recovery program on whose board of directors Vennes served as recently as February 2008.”

“Vennes’ contribution to Bachmann, in other words, seems essentially to have gone from the pocket of one Vennes pal to the pocket of another.”