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Monday, May 16, 2005
Mesopotamiam McDermott to Face Ethics Panel?This is good news indeed. The McDermott case began on Dec. 21, 1996, when John and Alice Martin, two longtime Democrats from Fort White, Fla., were listening to a police scanner in their car when they picked up the voice of Rep. John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, engaged in a conference call with House GOP leaders.
Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Boehner, then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey and then-Rep. Bill Paxon of New York were discussing a coordinated response to ethics charges against the speaker that were expected to be released that day.
The Martins had a tape recorder in their car and recorded the conversation, telling PBS' "NewsHour" program in 1997 that they sensed they were listening to "a part of history," and said they planned to give the tape to their grandchild "when he was old enough to hear it."
But the tape suggested that Mr. Gingrich was breaking a deal with the ethics committee that he not orchestrate a response to the charges.
The couple traveled to Washington and handed over the tape to Mr. McDermott, who was the ranking Democrat on the ethics committee at the time. Two days later, the New York Times ran a front-page story about how Mr. Gingrich might have violated his agreement with the panel.
Mr. McDermott, however, found himself in hot water because it is a federal offense to secretly record a telephone conversation and share the information with the public.
A federal court found that Mr. McDermott illegally distributed the tape and ordered him to pay Mr. Boehner, who filed a lawsuit against him, $60,000 in punitive damages. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling last month.
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