Baghdad Jim McDermott Contributes To Republican Party

Baghdad Jim has finally paid up - $1,093,297 into Congressman John Boehner's political action commmittee.

McDermott, a Seattle Democrat, paid $1,093,297 to the Ohio Republican's campaign committee earlier this month, spokesmen for the two men said Monday.

The payment is in addition to $64,000 McDermott paid Boehner in January, as part of court-ordered punitive damages in the long-running case.

A federal judge ordered McDermott to compensate Boehner for attorney's fees after Boehner sued McDermott for leaking the contents of a cellphone call that was illegally recorded in 1996.

A federal court found last year that McDermott had no right to release the recording, in which Republican leaders discussed an ethics case against then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.

A Florida couple recorded the cellphone call on a radio scanner and gave the tape to McDermott, who at the time was a senior member of the House ethics committee. McDermott leaked the tape to two newspapers, which published articles on the case in January 1997.