West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin's campaign for the Senate seat long held by the late Democrat Robert Byrd has had a distraction in the last six weeks in the form of a federal investigation.

The Department of Administration and the state Division of Highways were served two subpoenas about contracts awarded in the state for a highway project that runs through Fairmont, where Manchin is from.

Asked by RealClearPolitics on Sunday if he has heard of any updates in the probe, Manchin said, “No. No I haven't." He continued, "As a governor, you're going to have a lot of things that come through. We tell everybody to work in an open and transparent as humanly possible way."

As for whether he knows what prompted the investigation, Manchin said, “It's the political season, so anything and everything is going to be thrown. I've been around long enough understanding that I feel good about our administration. I know that everything we've done and everyone that's been in my administration has done so with one agenda making West Virginia better. If there's some other people that we've had to do some things very difficult that people didn't want done, I understand that. There might be people very upset and complaining. We make bidding. We wanted people to bid. We want to get the best value for the state in everything we've done. Now, we've stepped on the good old systems that have been there for far too long. I'm sure that a lot of that could be part of it.  But we'll find out. It will unfold. It will work itself out.”

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