When South Carolina’s GOP state treasurer, Curtis Loftis, decided to make public his complaints about how the state’s roughly $25 billion pension fund is managed, he knew there would be personal or political repercussions. He might not have known they would come so swiftly.

On Jan. 31, Loftis accused the state’s pension fund managers of charging hundreds of millions in fees and investing too much of the public fund in risky Wall-Street gambles.

Just days after Loftis criticized how the pension fund is being managed during a Senate Finance subcommittee meeting, a story leaked out that state law enforcement was investigating whether a friend of Loftis’, Mallory Factor, had allegedly tried to solicit money from two investment firms if he helped them get in on managing the state’s multi-billion-dollar cash cow.