McDermott To Pay More Than $1 Million In Boehner Legal Bills

A federal judge has ordered Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) to pay over $1 million in legal bills incurred by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) in a long-running battle between the two lawmakers over a leaked 1996 phone call.

Chief Judge Thomas Hogan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered McDermott to pay $1,053,181.40 in attorney's fees and costs, plus roughly $40,000 in interest to date. The Washington Democrat also had to cough up another $60,000 in fines. And that's on top of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees that McDermott must pay his own lawyers.

In a statement, McDermott said the legal fight - which Boehner offered at one point to settle with a public apology and a charitable donation - was worth it, despite the cost.

"This has been a long and costly battle but, in the final analysis, the judgment handed down today in the U.S. District Court is a small price to pay in defense of so fundamental a principle, and freedom, as the First Amendment," McDermott said. "Because of this protracted legal challenge, the First Amendment is stronger today, and shielded by new case law that will buttress its capacity to protect the publication of truthful information on matters of public importance long into the future. Knowing this, I am proud of my role in defense of the First Amendment."

The dispute grew out of a illegally recorded December 1996 phone call between House Republican leaders looking to spin an ethics case against then Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). A Florida couple improperly taped the call, and the tape was eventually given to McDermott, then ranking member on the House ethics committee. McDermott leaked the tape to the press in order to demonstrate that Republicans were not abiding by their promise not to interfere with the Gingrich case, but the resulting media uproar led to McDermott's decision to step down from the ethics panel.

In an unprecedented move, Boehner sued McDermott in March 1998 for violating his privacy rights. After a long struggle that included numerous twists and turns, Boehner won, and now McDermott must cover the Ohio Republican's legal bills.
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