HILL BRIEFS

McDermott Pays Boehner, Ending Phone Call Dispute

Tue. Apr. 29, 2008


Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., has ended an 11-year legal battle over an illegally taped phone conversation by paying $1.09 million to the campaign committee of House Minority Leader Boehner.

“Every last penny will be used to help elect Republicans,” a spokesman for Boehner, Kevin Smith, told the Associated Press. Smith said it is ironic that McDermott “is helping fund the defeat of his fellow Democrats. I wouldn’t expect he’ll receive a lot of thank yous come November.”

McDermott was unbowed. “While the amount of damages assessed in this case is significant,” he said, “I submit that defending the First Amendment is beyond measure and worth every penny.”

A federal court found last year that McDermott improperly made public a cell phone call, taped by a Florida couple from a radio scanner, in which Republican leaders were discussing an ethics case against then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. McDermott, then on the House Ethics Committee, leaked the tape to newspapers that published articles on the case in January 1997. A federal judge recently ordered McDermott to pay Boehner’s legal fees in the case.

Tue. Apr. 29, 2008