Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's political action committee reported giving $5,000 to Sen. David Vitter, R-La., the same week it accepted an identical amount from former Rep. Chip Pickering of Mississippi.

Pickering, like Vitter, is a conservative Christian Republican accused of having an extramarital affair linked to the "C Street" townhouse in Southeast Washington that is at the center of a spate of GOP sex scandals.

Pickering's otherwise dormant CHIP PAC made its first donation of the year to Haley's PAC on Aug. 15 -- four days after the governor gave to Vitter's 2010 re-election campaign -- according to a Sept. 20 filing with the Federal Election Commission. The two checks comprise all of the month's activities for Haley's PAC, which has just $13,281.37 in the bank and has made only one other contribution this year.

Is it just a coincidence?

A Capitol Hill townhouse that serves as a dormitory and meeting place for a band of conservative Christian lawmakers has been linked to a third episode of marital infidelity, this time in a Mississippi court filing by a former lawmaker's estranged wife.

In an "alienation of affection" lawsuit, former Rep. Charles W. Pickering Jr.'s estranged wife, Leisha, alleges that he carried on an extramarital affair with a onetime college sweetheart while he lived at a house at 133 C Street in Southeast Washington. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Gov. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., both of whom admitted to cheating on their wives in recent weeks, are members of the Christian fellowship of lawmakers known as "C Street" for the address of the house where several of the members live at any given time.

Pickering Complaint

Leisha Pickering alleges that some of the "wrongful conduct" on the part of the woman accused of breaking up the Pickering marriage "occurred and accrued" in Washington, D.C., "at the C Street Complex."