Judge: $1M in Legal Fees for Boehner

[Mugu]

By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press Writer via SFGate

A federal judge has ordered Rep. Jim McDermott to pay House Minority Leader John Boehner more than $1 million in legal fees in a decade-long dispute over an illegally taped telephone call.

Chief Judge Thomas Hogan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered McDermott to pay Boehner $1.05 million in attorney's fees and costs, plus about $40,000 in interest. McDermott, a Washington Democrat, also had to pay more than $60,000 in fines and damages, as well as nearly $600,000 in fees to his own lawyers. McDermott said Tuesday he would not appeal the judge's ruling.

"It's dead," he said of the 10-year dispute with Boehner, R-Ohio. "We're just cleaning up after the parade. We saved the First Amendment, and it costs a piece of change, but that's life in the big leagues."

The Supreme Court ruled last month that McDermott acted improperly in giving reporters access to an audio tape given to him by a Florida couple who recorded a 1996 telephone call involving then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and other GOP leaders. McDermott, at the time a senior member of the House ethics committee, leaked the tape to two newspapers, which published articles on the case in January 1997.


Complete article at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/04/01/national/w072318D68.DTL