Vitter gets mixed ruling on campaign funds

21 Aug 2008 // The Federal Election Commission today couldn't agree on whether Sen. David Vitter, R-La., can use campaign funds to pay all the legal costs related to his involvement with a Washington escort service.

In a 3-3 vote, with Republicans voting yes and Democrats no, the commission deadlocked on whether his campaign funds could be used to pay more than $160,000 in legal fees related to the cost of monitoring the federal criminal case against Deborah Jean Palfrey, the so-called "D.C. Madam" and quashing her defense team's subpoenas of the senator. A majority vote is required for passage of a resolution.

The commission, however, agreed, 6-0, that Vitter can use campaign funds for $31,341 in public relations costs and legal work related to a complaint filed with the Senate Ethics Committee, which has already been rejected by the panel.

Vitter has more than $200,000 in legal fees, of which he already has spent $70,000 in his own funds. His connection to Palfrey became public last year when he acknowledged that his phone number had appeared on her escort service's phone list and issued a statement that apologized to his family and public for "a very serious sin."

Commission members not only couldn't agree on how to resolve Vitter's request for an advisory opinion on the use of his campaign funds, but they disagreed on the impact of their failure to resolve the issue.

Chairman Donald McGahn II, a Republican, suggested that earlier precedent by the commission had established that legal fees related to a case that became notable because of the person's office, even if not directly related to their legislative of campaign activities, could be reimbursed from campaign funds. He suggested that Vitter could use that "precedent" to use the funds to cover legal fees related to the Palfrey case - even without specific commission authorization covering the particulars of his case.

But Commission member Ellen Weintraub , a Democrat, said that the precedent isn't as firmly established as McGahn suggested, especially in recent commission rulings, and therefore Vitter would be at "some risk" if he used campaign funds for that purpose.

In arguing the merits of the case, commission member Matthew Petersen, a Republican, said that 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 numbers appeared on Palfrey's phone lists had not been subpoenaed. Therefore, he said, it's easy to conclude that were it not for Vitter's office, he wouldn't have had to incur the legal costs to monitor the Palfrey case and quash her defense team's subpoena.

But Weintraub said that for the commission to do as Petersen suggested would be to say that a member of Congress, or candidate, who was going through a messy divorce could use campaign funds to hire "the best divorce lawyer," or that a candidate who owned an apartment house with maintenance issues could hire a plumber so his tenants wouldn't embarrass him by going public with the maintenance problem.

It's not appropriate in those two cases, Weintraub said, and it isn't in Vitter's situation, either.

In a letter hand-delivered to the commission just prior to this morning's session, Vitter said that the commission should allow him to use campaign funds to cover all his legal fees in the Palfrey case.

"Please don't misunderstand me, I committed a very serious wrong and mistake," Vitter wrote. "My only point is that others who did the same but were not notable were not similarly treated or targeted by the defense in the Palfrey litigation."

Vitter said that not allowing him to use campaign funds for his legal costs would encourage others to "target members of Congress" to combat charges against them.

"Unless one has vast personal resources, which most members including me do not, this can create a potentially crippling burden of attorneys' fees which mast be paid for with personal funds, even though the litigation or targeting is a direct result of the person's status as a member of Congress," Vitter wrote.

Palfrey committed suicide on May 1 after a federal jury found her guilty of racketeering and mail fraud for operating what prosecutors called a prostitution ring in the nation's capital.