McDermott: Taping Dispute Not Personal (Why isn't Baghdad Jim doing time behind bars?)

Star Tribune ^ | 4/01/06 | MATTHEW DALY

[Libloather]

McDermott: Taping Dispute Not Personal
By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press Writer
Last update: April 01, 2006 – 4:28 AM

WASHINGTON (AP) - Rep. Jim McDermott says his eight-year dispute with House Majority Leader John Boehner over an intercepted telephone call is not personal, but involves a crucial right of voters to know what their leaders are doing.

"Unfortunately, it's portrayed in the paper as Boehner v. McDermott. It really is the government versus the people,'' McDermott, D-Wash., said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press.

McDermott commented three days after a federal appeals court ruling against him in the long-running dispute.

In a 2-1 opinion Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower-court ruling that McDermott had unlawfully obtained a copy of an illegally intercepted phone conversation between Boehner, then-Speaker Newt Gingrich and other House GOP leaders in December 1996.

McDermott has acknowledged leaking a tape of the call to The New York Times and other news organizations.

The appeals court upheld a lower-court ruling ordering McDermott to pay Boehner, R-Ohio, about $700,000. The figure includes $60,000 in damages and more than $600,000 in legal costs.

"The third person in line to be president was plotting a deception on the (House) ethics committee and the American people in private,'' McDermott said, referring to Gingrich, who was heard on a 1996 cell phone call telling House Republicans how to react to ethics charges against him.

"The people have a right to know that,'' McDermott said. "John Boehner says people have no right to know, because it was done in secret.''

McDermott, who estimated his own legal bills at about $430,000, said he has not decided whether to appeal.

[jennyp]

Yet these people used very plain language and never slipped in a word or phrase that made you think they were truly the ones who captured the conversation in the purported fashion.

As I recall, Gingrich & the others were having their last conference call before the agreed-upon silence period was to begin. They were totally acting within their agreement.

IIRC, the Martins said their children had gotten the scanner for them for their birthday, and they were just starting to get used to it. It was all fun & games until they captured these baaaaaad Republican congressmen hatching their evil conspiracy to follow the agreement. Then they just HAD to tell the world of this nefarious plot.

[Libertina]

OK, I'm confused here... I thought illegal wiretaps were bad? LOL

[Lancey Howard]

Wow. That sick scumbag looks like Frankenstein or something.