Democratic Rep. Jim McDermott has been ordered to pay House Minority Leader John Boehner $1.1 million in legal fees and other charges stemming from a lawsuit filed a decade ago.
The Ohio Republican sued McDermott, who represents the Seattle, Wash., area, after McDermott leaked to the press an illegally recorded tape containing a conversation between Boehner, Newt Gingrich and other Republican leaders.
A Florida couple had picked up Boehner’s 1996 cell phone conversation on a radio scanner and turned the tape over to McDermott then the senior Democrat on the House Ethics Committee.
The conversation regarded an Ethics Committee reprimand of then House Speaker Newt Gingrich, according to Investor’s Business Daily.
Boehner sued in 1998, and the case has been making its way through the courts.
On December 11, 2006, a report released by the House Ethics Committee concluded that McDermott "violated ethics rules by giving reporters access to an illegally taped telephone call involving Republican leaders” and said McDermott's actions "were not consistent with the spirit of the committee."
Now a U.S. District Court Judge has ordered McDermott to pay Boehner $1.05 million in attorney’s fees, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported, plus about $40,000 in interest and more than $60,000 in damages.
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