Washington – Rep. Jim McDermott had no right to disclose the contents of an illegally taped telephone call involving House Republican leaders a decade ago, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
In a 5-4 opinion, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that McDermott, a Washington Democrat, should not have given reporters access to the taped telephone call.
McDermott’s offense was especially egregious since he was a senior member of the House ethics committee, the court said.
When he became a member of the ethics panel, McDermott “voluntarily accepted a duty of confidentiality that covered his receipt and handling of the … illegal recording. He therefore had no First Amendment right to disclose the tape to the media,” Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote on behalf of the court. Four judges agreed with him.
The ruling upholds a previous decision ordering McDermott to pay House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, more than $700,000 for leaking the taped conversation. The figure includes $60,000 in damages and more than $600,000 in legal costs.
Boehner was among several GOP leaders heard on the December 1996 call, which involved ethics allegations against then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. Gingrich, who was heard on the call telling Boehner and others how to react to allegations, was later fined $300,000 and reprimanded by the House.
McDermott leaked the tape to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The New York Times, which published stories on the case in January 1997.
In a sharp dissent, Judge David B. Sentelle said that under the majority’s ruling, “no one in the United States could communicate on this topic of public interest because of the defect in the chain of title,” that is, the fact that the tape was illegally obtained.
Boehner called the court’s ruling encouraging.
“As I’ve said many times, when you break the law in pursuit of a political opponent, you’ve gone too far,” Boehner said in a statement.
McDermott, who has 90 days to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, called the decision “important and unfortunate” and said it was likely to have a chilling effect on political speech.
