Republican U.S. Senator Busted Using Hookers. Wants To Pay Legal Bills With Campaign Money. Three Republicans On Federal Election Commission Don’t See A Problem With This.
As you may know, Senator David Vitter of Louisiana was implicated in the D.C. Madam case and has admitted that he committed a “very serious sin.”
Not only is he still serving as a United States Senator from Louisiana, but now he wants to use his campaign money to pay legal bills related to his being subpoenaed in the case.
This guy just can’t leave well enough alone.
Anyway, the issue recently went before the Federal Election Commission.[1]
They apparently agreed that he could use campaign money to pay for “$31,341 in public relations costs and legal work related to a complaint filed with the Senate Ethics Committee.”
But when it came to dealing with the hookers things got tight: the vote dead-locked with the 3 republican commissioners saying the distinguished Senator could use his campaign money to pay legal bills not related to his official duties and the 3 democrats saying he couldn’t.
Since I’m pretty sure problems with hookers had nothing to do with Senator Vitter’s “family values” election platform the democrats are right on this one.
3 republican FEC commissioners, Donald F. McGahn, II, Caroline C. Hunter, and Matthew S. Peterson, taking care of a fellow republican.[2]
Now that’s ”real family values.”
[1] http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/08/fec_split_in_vitters_push_for.html
[2] http://www.fec.gov/members/members.shtml. The web-site doesn’t tell you which ones are which. I had to call the FEC to find out. (202) 694-1000.
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8 Responses to “Republican U.S. Senator Busted Using Hookers. Wants To Pay Legal Bills With Campaign Money. Three Republicans On Federal Election Commission Don’t See A Problem With This.”
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When Republicans talk about family values they mean “family” in the Tony Soprano sense.
so what is the status, they do have a quorum now so they can vote, they’re 7 now on the board.
Where does he / she stand on this ?
Who is this 7th commissioner? The FEC website link has only 6 members listed.
As to where this stands now, the http://www.nola.com article referenced above states that the commissioners apparently disagree about the impact of their “non-decision.” Predictably the republican members believe the tie gives the Senator the go ahead to use the money. The democrats believe it doesn’t. Senator Vitter believes this is all a “public relations” issue.
Here is a long quote from the article:
“Weighing ramifications
Commission members not only couldn’t agree on how to resolve Vitter’s request for an advisory opinion on the use of his campaign money, but they also disagreed on the impact of their “non-decision.”
Chairman Donald McGahn II, a Republican, said earlier precedent by the commission established that legal fees related to a case that became notable because of the person’s office, even if not directly related to legislative or campaign activities, could be reimbursed from campaign money. McGahn suggested Vitter could use that precedent to use the money to cover legal fees related to the Palfrey case even without specific commission authorization covering the particulars of his case.
But Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat, said precedent isn’t nearly as firmly established as McGahn suggested, and Vitter would be at “some risk” if he did so.
But if Vitter used the campaign money to pay his legal fees and someone filed a complaint with the commission, any proposal to impose sanctions would go before the same panel that deadlocked on the issue Thursday.
Sticking to their guns
In arguing the merits of the case, Commissioner Matthew Petersen, a Republican, said there is little doubt that Palfrey subpoenaed only “high-profile” people for her legal defense, pointing out that 14,994 of the 15,000 people whose phone numbers appeared on Palfrey’s records were not subpoenaed. Therefore, Vitter’s involvement as a potential witness was only because of his status as an elected official, he said.
Petersen said some commission members might have been influenced by the circumstances involved in the Palfrey case, by which he presumably meant prostitution, and whether they view Vitter as “a good guy or a bad guy.”
Weintraub said by Petersen’s logic, it would be all right for a member of Congress going through a messy divorce to use campaign money “to hire the best divorce lawyer.” That’s not appropriate, she said, and nor is it appropriate for Vitter to get reimbursement from campaign money for a legal case unrelated to his official duties.
In his letter, Vitter said that since the commission seems to agree on a bipartisan basis that he can use campaign money to pay public relations costs, the commission should also allow him to use campaign money to pay for his attorneys’ monitoring of the Palfrey case because it was done mainly as a “public relations function.”"
Senator Vitter’s excuses in this last paragraph are a bunch of bull. The FEC is letting him use campaign money to pay for the public relations and legal fees associated with the Senate Ethics Committee hearing because he works at the Senate and the hearing was job related (almost like a performance review at a company), not because this case is a “public relations function.” No Senator, I think paying lawyers more than $200K to “monitor” a case when solicitation of prostitution is, as far as I know, still a crime in the United States, definitely counts as a personal legal function, not a public relations one.
So what, so he likes a hooker every now and then. Heck he is probably married to an old battle axe so who can blame him. No harm no foul!
RD
http://www.decrypt.net.tc
OFCOURSE REPUBLICANS ARE GOING TO APPROVE THE USE OF THE MONEY ON HIS PRIVATE LIFE. ALL REPUBLICANS THINK ABOUT IS MONEY AND THEMSELVES.
I started bothering Jim McDish soon after he wrote that post yesterday.
Jim is starting to realize that Sen. Vitter is a hypocritical toolbag according to Sen. Vitter’s OWN publicly-stated standards.
Most people don’t care a lot if Sen. Vitter has a battleaxe for a wife, or if he compensates for that problem through criminal activity with hookers.
But they do understand the harm that comes with these moral crusaders of the far right, who want to impose their Puritanical laws on the rest of us, even while they commit the very sins that they so loudly and publicly denounce in others.
Vitter-along with Larry Craig- has pushed for the Federal Marriage Amendment:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SJ00043:@@@P
Makes me wonder if they’re going to ask for any other amendment.
“Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom to procure prostitutes, nor the solicitation of sex in public facilities, provided all pursuant parties are of an age of majority.”
You forgot: “Nor prohibition of payment of legal fees arising from said activities with other people’s money.”