As reported at CQ Politics, Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) -- a Sound Politics favorite -- has paid $64,169 in punitive and statutory damages (plus interest) to Congressman John Boehner (R-OH, and now minority leader) for having leaked an illegally wiretapped conversation.
More payments could be coming, perhaps more than $850,000, as McDermott also has to pay Boehner's legal fees.
UPDATE: Sheepishly corrected Boehner's party affiliation.
Posted by pudge at January 31, 2008 09:28 AM | Email ThisIn my 2006 campaign against McDermott, I debated the far left Democrat congressman three times, received extensive media coverage, and created enthusiasm among grassroots Republican and conservative activists. I'm likely to run again in 2008, and if I do run my campaign will be committed to supporting our troops, reduced government spending, stopping illegal immigration, social conservatism, and promoting a positive moral vision of America's future.
For more information, go to www.berenforcongress.com and www.steveberen.com (donations are always welcome!).
Also, last fall, Rico Halo of ThatPoliticalBlog.com interviewed me on the war against Islamic terrorism, stopping illegal immigration, moral values, global warming, and the 2008 elections. Part 1 of that interview is available online at http://tinyurl.com/yvjqco
Posted by: Steve Beren on January 31, 2008 10:13 AMThat'll show him.
Posted by: SouthernRoots on January 31, 2008 12:03 PMHow awful would it be if this view were typical of US politicians in charge?
All the more reason to consider Stefan's posits with signficant skepticism. Any idea, belief that can't stand the light of democratic discussion is suspect at its core.
Rommney? No thanks.
Posted by: Bill Anderson on January 31, 2008 02:39 PMI believe it's the latter :)
Like JJ Putz (he pronounces it Pootz), the phoenetic pronunciation isn't exactly ideal.
Posted by: Palouse on January 31, 2008 02:49 PMAnd yes, Bay-ner.
Posted by: pudge on January 31, 2008 02:51 PMfull report at http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i2iq-WpmHNvRKBX2M881UiIl_Q0wD8UH5CLO0
The exact amount McDermott owes in the case is the subject of a separate legal dispute being heard in federal court. A ruling on the fees is expected in the next few weeks.
Kevin Smith, a spokesman for Boehner, called it ironic that the payment from McDermott's legal defense fund will go to Boehner's campaign account.
"Mr. McDermott is the biggest contributor" to the account, known as "Friends of John Boehner," Smith said Thursday.
The money "will be used to defeat fellow Democrats of Mr. McDermott," he said.
Mike DeCesare, a spokesman for McDermott, called the payment a sign of "the process moving along," adding that McDermott hopes to get the matter behind him and move on to other issues.
A report filed with the House clerk shows McDermott's legal expense trust fund took in about $56,000 in the final three months of 2007, for a full-year total of just over $100,000.
Posted by: Steve Beren on January 31, 2008 03:43 PMGOOD FOR BOEHNER for dogging McDermott on this to the very end.
Posted by: Michele on January 31, 2008 04:40 PMBut all involved in the crimes, including a New York Times reporter who was -- correctly -- given a vulgar name by then candidate Bush, thought the Republicans leaders were plotting something awful. Even though much of the conversation was about how to follow the agreement.
But that's our McDermott. He trusted Saddam and hates Bush and other Republicans so much that he can't see them clearly.
Posted by: Jim Miller on January 31, 2008 05:01 PMPersonally, if a democrat, republican, unaffiliated, or independent politician was making unethical devious decisions to manipulate the public perception of unethical behaviour for political purposes after being explicitly told not to, I think we should know about it. All McDermott did was show how underhanded Boehner was. Knowing that the ethics committee is broken (don't think so? Ask the numerous Pages who were preyed on by Craig and Foley, etc. - swept under the carpet by your favorite pals in office) I would have appluaded McDermott's behavior even if the Boehner was a Democrat.
Posted by: Kim on February 1, 2008 02:59 PMWha! I hope he goes to jail! boo hoo I hope the IRS get him Wha! The poo poo showed me what a jerk Boehner is and I want him gone! Boo! hoo! I wish my head was back in the sand - that darn McDermott! How dare he show me how unethical my leaders are. He should be out so that my unethical leaders will be able to lead me right where I want to be - in the dark. Wha!
Posted by: Kim on February 1, 2008 03:22 PMContrary to what McDermott's press office dishonestly says, there was no "mandate" from the Ethics Committee for Gingrich to not have such a conversation. There was nothing underhanded here. There was nothing incriminating in the phone call.
And even if there was, there is no justification for breaking the law.
Your "logic" here is terrible: you honestly want us to believe that it is OK to break the law in order to uncover some people engaging in a perfectly legal conversation. On no level does this make sense, unless you're an anarchist.
Gingrich, Boehner, and the rest broke no law. McDermott did. And you want to blame everyone BUT McDermott.
You are the one who is guilty of "no ethics, just group think and group protection."
Posted by: pudge on February 1, 2008 03:23 PMAs usual, it's impossible to tell whether Jim Miller & pudge are lying or just ignorant. Rep. Boehner and his fellows were discussing how to help their then-leader, Rep. Gingrich, swindle the Ethics Committee. McDermott broke no law, as anyone who knew anything about this matter would know. Boehner, on the other hand:
As a member of the former House leadership, Rep. Boehner is likely under federal investigation for taking Jack Abramoff's bribes. The money McDermott pays Boehner would then go to Boehner's felony defense fund. His fellow Republican, Robert Ney of Ohio, defended himself until his own money ran out. Then he miserably pleaded guilty to bribery, and the judge in the case forced him to admit to every shameful breach of our trust. Get used to that pattern; you'll be seeing much more of it.
Meanwhile, to clear up any confusion, Seattle is a very wealthy city, and we love our congressman. Paying money to the likes of Boehner may hurt a bit, but we'd rather do that than allow Boehner to silence any of his richly-earned criticism. If Boehner did take Abramoff's bribes, then McDermott's money will only prolong Boehner's agony. Is that what you wanted?
Posted by: tensor on February 2, 2008 11:14 AMAnd you are lying when you say this is about "using the courts to punish critics." It is about using the courts to punish lawbreaking.
McDermott broke the law. You are the one who is lying, or ignorant. What McDermott did is illegal, and the courts ruled it that way (in the words of the U.S. District Court judge, he "participated in an illegal transaction when he accepted the tape"). No one else (except the people who recorded the tape, of course) broke any laws.
You can't spin this. He broke the law. Boehner and Gingrich and all the other Republicans didn't.
Love your Congressman all you want. But don't lie for him.
Posted by: pudge on February 2, 2008 11:31 AM"It is about using the courts to punish lawbreaking."
Cite the federal statute he violated, the court in which he was indicted, and the jury's verdict of his guilt. You can't, because none of those things ever happened. This was a civil case; the grand jury investigating the criminal case disbanded in the 1990s. If you don't understand the difference between civil and criminal law in this country, you probably can't understand anything else about this matter, either. (The opinion of a judge in a civil case does not carry the weight of a jury verdict in a criminal case, as almost 1,000 years of Anglo-American legal tradition hold. 'Tis pity you know nothing about that.)
I know you guys hate McDermott, and therefore love Boehner's abuse of the legal system to hurt his critic. Please keep right on defending Gingich, who still holds the record for paying the largest ethics fine in the history of our Speakership; it shows your morals plainly. You are endorsing the use of the courts to punish criticism of the powerful, a position you will instantly abandon should any Democrat ever use it. Have fun hiding from President Clinton next year.
Posted by: tensor on February 2, 2008 12:39 PMhttp://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301632,00.html
"And because they did voluntarily, I believe that they deserve immunity from lawsuits out there from typical trial lawyers trying to find a way to get into the pockets of the American companies."
He's referring to telecom companies, entities which violated the privacy rights of their own customers because the Bush Administration asked them to. They broke the law, and they don't want to pay for it in court. And your great man of privacy protection wants to help them get away with it.
I'm so glad my hero is Jim McDermott, not John Boehner.
Please stop being retarded. I never said he was convicted. I merely stated the facts that he broke the law, and that a judge held that he broke the law. You cannot argue against those facts, no matter how much you try. You just end up looking as stupid as thehim.
Now that Rep. Boehner has come out for telecom immunity, we know his case was about punishing a critic, and nothing else. You've implicitly endorsed his abuse of the courts, so don't come crying to us liberals if your phone company secretly recorded your conversations; your hero Boehner has reserved privacy as a privilege to be bought with payments to trial lawyers, not the right of an American. You must be so proud.
Posted by: Tensor on February 2, 2008 09:55 PMThe facts are not in question. The law is not in question. McDermott, through his actions, broke the law. His defense wasn't even "I didn't break the law" but that he had a First Amendment right to break the law. It's called an affirmative defense. McDermott even ADMITTED he violated the law. As the circuit court ruling said in 1999: "At oral argument, McDermott conceded that, on the facts alleged in the complaint, his delivery of the tapes to the newspapers brought him within 2511(1)(c)'s prohibition against anyone who 'intentionally discloses, or endeavors to disclose' the contents of an illegally intercepted communication."
However, he argued that "2511(1)(c), as applied to him, violated the free speech clause of the First Amendment." So, again, he admitted he broke the law, but claimed that he had a right to break the law.
You're wrong: he broke the law. HE EVEN ADMITTED IT.
Posted by: pudge on February 2, 2008 10:23 PMGlad I was able to educate you on that. Thehim may be jealous.
"Your wanking about the Magna Carta is irrelevant here."
You've heard of it! Now note that your two sentences contradict each other. Since McDermott was never tried by a jury, he cannot be guilty of anything. You can still call him guilty all that you want, of course; you used to have a First Amendment right to make criticisms of political leaders, and I doubt McDermott will bother using his newly-minted power of the courts to punish you. (He has important work to do in the Congress, after all.)
By the way, YOU have 'intentionally disclose[d]' the contents of the tape (although your recounting of the conversation contained therein is so wrong as to be risibly worthless). You're as 'guilty' as McDermott, and Boehner -- who, by his own admission, cares absolutely nothing for telecom privacy -- can sue you. Better keep your criticisms of the powerful confined to targets who lack your man Boehner's intolerant vindictiveness.
Posted by: tensor on February 2, 2008 11:19 PMFalse.
Since McDermott was never tried by a jury, he cannot be guilty of anything.
False. He merely isn't found guilty by a court. That is a different thing from actually being guilty of breaking the law ... as he admitted he is.
You're not very good at this.
You can keep moaning about McDermott's 'guilt' all you want; servicing hatred is all the modern right-wing movement ever does anymore. We'll pay Boehner's legal defense fund, but the outcome is irrelevant: Having never been convicted of anything, McDermott stays in Congress, as a member of the majority party, and Boehner, when not facing criminal charges, will remain a member of a small and dwindling minority. All Boehner has done is set a very bad precedent, where a powerful government official can punish a critic for telling the truth about his unethical actions. That you've implicitly endorsed such vindictive punishment shows just how far our modern right-wing movement has slithered from American concepts of justice.
Posted by: tensor on February 3, 2008 09:09 AMYou are wrong on several levels, as I have come to expect.
First, no, Bush never admitted violating FISA. You are lying.
Second -- and why you keep getting this incorrectly I can't fathom -- there's a difference between saying someone violated the law, and saying they have been found guilty in court and therefore being criminally liable. You keep acting like the two are the same. They aren't. Please try to understand this fact.
Third, building off the last point, a law that is illegal (or illegal to apply in a given context) may legally be violated. This is the case that McDermott tried, and failed, to make, and it is one of the several defenses Bush could use.
Fourth, even if Bush did violate the FISA and any affirmative defense he has isn't recognized, that doesn't mean he should be "in jail," any more than Clinton should be in jail for his similar violations, or any other President for theirs.
Fifth, I have ALWAYS maintained since the wiretapping claims first surfaced that Bush's actions probably DID violate FISA and have no justifiable affirmative defense. So your argument here has no bearing on me anyway. I am unsure, because the legal precedents on Bush's side (including a ruling by the FISA Court of Review itself, not to mention many actions by past Presidents) are strong, but the bottom line is that I can find no justification in the Constitution for it.
Sixth, no jury trial is necessary; what IS necessary is a SCOTUS ruling. This is a legal dipsute between the Congress and President, about proper interpretation of the prevailing law and the Constitution. The only body that can resolve that legal dispute is the SCOTUS.
Seventh, and finally, even if I was right all along and Bush was wrong and broke the law, it does not follow that Bush should be in jail, any more than it follows that McDermott should be in jail for breaking the law. I am not saying he should be in jail. I am simply stating absolute and unquestionable facts: he broke the law, Boehner and Gingrich did not break the law, and you and the left are defending him.
You can keep moaning about McDermott's 'guilt' all you want
You're lying again: you are the one who brought up 'guilt.'
servicing hatred is all the modern right-wing movement ever does anymore
Shrug. That's all YOU are doing.
We'll pay Boehner's legal defense fund, but the outcome is irrelevant: Having never been convicted of anything, McDermott stays in Congress, as a member of the majority party, and Boehner, when not facing criminal charges, will remain a member of a small and dwindling minority.
So why are you bitching?
All Boehner has done is set a very bad precedent, where a powerful government official can punish a critic for telling the truth about his unethical actions.
You're lying again, of course. And again, doing it on multiple levels:
First, Boehner did nothing that was unethical. Period. If anyone did anything unethical (other than, obviously, McDermott), it was only Gingrich, since the agreement to not organize a response was only binding on Gingrich, not anyone else.
Second, McDermott was not punished for telling the truth, but for breaking the law.
That you've implicitly endorsed such vindictive punishment shows just how far our modern right-wing movement has slithered from American concepts of justice.
That you reframe punishing a lawbreaker as punishing a "hero," and dishonestly call Boehner's perfectly legitimate actions "unethical," shows just how far the modern "progressive" movement has slid backward to its crypto-fascist roots, a la Henry Wallace.
Posted by: pudge on February 3, 2008 09:47 AMGingrich's agreement with the ethics committee prevented him from organizing a public response to their fining him for his blatantly unethical conduct. (They allowed him merely to pay the largest ethics fine in the history of the Speakership, when they had standing to remove him from the Speakership.) The very existence of this telephone call violated the spirit of that agreement, and the actual conversation violated the letter of it.
McDermott, as a member of the swindled ethics committee, had a moral obligation to expose this wrongdoing when evidence of it was handed to him.
"Second, McDermott was not punished for telling the truth, but for breaking the law."
You poor fool. Boehner has already admitted he wants immunity for the real perpetrators of exactly such acts of lawbreaking, and he's pushing legislation in our House to prevent anyone else from doing as Boehner did to McDermott. Boehner's lawsuit was to punish his critic, for exposing Boehner's eager violation of our House's ethical standards. If a telephone company recorded your private conversations, Boehner wants that company to have immunity from your lawsuit. I'll give you a little tip here: outside of the stagnant, narrow depths of modern Republicanism, "do as I say, not as I do," is not recognized as the highest of all possible moral principles.
'That you reframe punishing a lawbreaker as punishing a "hero," and dishonestly call Boehner's perfectly legitimate actions "unethical," shows just how far the modern "progressive" movement has slid backward to its crypto-fascist roots, a la Henry Wallace.'
Been up late, reading on-line excerpts of Jonah Goldberg's magdumb doughpuss, have we? You really, really, really don't want to introduce such terms into our civil discourse, trust me. One constant characteristic of fascists is their endless pronouncements of their own moral purity, whilst engaging in the filthiest of acts themselves. Kinda like Larry Craig, Newt Gingrich, Mark Foley, Henry Hyde, Strom Thurmond, Rev. Haggard, etc. -- the Republican list is endless.
Well, my tonsils are no longer the size of golf balls, so it's time for me to get some fresh air. I have to decide how much money I want to contribute to Bohener's felony defense fund. Any suggestions? He really doesn't want to go to jail, so aim high!
Posted by: tensor on February 3, 2008 11:05 AMRegardless of how accurate this statement is, it has nothing to do with Boehner, who was not subject to that agreement.
Boehner's lawsuit was to punish his critic for exposing Boehner's eager violation of our House's ethical standards
Boehner violated no ethical rules/standards. You are lying.
I'll give you a little tip here: outside of the stagnant, narrow depths of modern Republicanism, "do as I say, not as I do," is not recognized as the highest of all possible moral principles.
I'll give you a tip: bringing that up as an argument in favor of McDermott is the "tu quoque" logical fallacy. I am not here to defend Rep. Boehner (whom I would have voted against to be minority leader). I am here to state the facts: Boehner did nothing wrong whatsoever in this episode, and McDermott broke the law.
Been up late, reading on-line excerpts of Jonah Goldberg's magdumb doughpuss, have we?
Nope. Never read it. Don't know much about it, and nothing he's written there has had any impact on anything I've thought or said on the matter.
You really, really, really don't want to introduce such terms into our civil discourse, trust me.
You say this as though you either have truth on your side, or that you are somehow superior to me in rhetorical skills. You're wrong on both counts.
One constant characteristic of fascists is their endless pronouncements of their own moral purity, whilst engaging in the filthiest of acts themselves
If you are trying to show that progressivism is not littered with fascists and fascist tendencies, this is not the argument to use, since that is one of the most obvious characteristics of progressivism: proclaiming some high moral purity and then doing the worst thing you can do in a democracy -- destroy someone's liberty -- in order to enforce it.
It is clearly the progressives who want to control us the most, who have the most fascist tendencies. Think "universal health care." That's fascism in its purest form. You even have textbook propaganda to go along with it: the "us" versus "them," an immoral act (theft) presented as a moral imperative, and so on.
Kinda like Larry Craig, Newt Gingrich, Mark Foley, Henry Hyde, Strom Thurmond, Rev. Haggard, etc. -- the Republican list is endless.
As is the Democratic list: Obama, both Clintons, Edwards, Kerry, Kennedy ...
(Note also that Clinton was found by a court to do something worse than what Gingrich did: Gingrich was found to have, in essence, lied to the ethics committee, while Clinton was found to have, in essence, lied to the court. Neither was found to have done anything else wrong, and lying to a court is far worse than lying to the ethics committee. Just giving you some much-needed perspective here.)