Sen. Norm Coleman announced on Tuesday that he would use campaign funds to pay for legal fees to deal with allegations that he illegally accepted $75,000 in contributions from a prominent patron and friend.
The move promises to cause irritation among some of the Minnesota Republican's donors, who did not, in all likelihood, open up their check books to help the Senator clear his name of civil or ethics allegations. It also could spark a debate over whether Coleman is even allowed to turn to his campaign coffers for his legal defense.
Under Senate Ethics rules, members of the body are restricted in their use of campaign funds when it comes to legal actions. A Senator can only spend the cash he or she raised "to defend legal actions arising out of their campaign, election, or the performance of their official duties." In other words, it has to be political.
At its heart, the Coleman case is highly personal. The senator is alleged to have been funneled money from Nasser Kazeminy -- a longtime chum -- under the guise of insurance payments to the company of Coleman's wife. But two complaints suggest that Kazeminy wanted to help out the senator, whose financial situation was in duress. At the time, Coleman, one of the Senate's least wealthy members, was paying for major renovations on his home in Minnesota.
All of which suggests that the affair is decidedly devoid of politics. Except that, the real case against Coleman is not potentially corruption or bribery, at least at this point. Rather, it is that he failed to report the money his family allegedly received on his personal financial disclosure forms -- a violation of ethics law that derailed Sen. Ted Stevens this year. As such, lawyers well briefed on these topics say, Coleman is likely to get clearance from the Federal Election Committee and Senate Ethics Committee (as he is required) to use campaign funds for his legal defense.
"It has always been a tricky question where you draw that line between what is related to official duties and what is purely private," said Larry Noble, a lawyer for the firm Skadden Arps. "The FEC has said that generally, if the issue does relate to your campaign or your official work, you can use campaign funds. And the issue of a personal financial disclosure forms may fall under professional use."
"My best guess would be that the FEC would allow Coleman to use campaign funds to pay these legal fees because the allegation against him is that he violated Senate ethics rules and the Ethics in Government Act by failing to disclose the alleged receipt of the funds," said Brett Kappel, a lawyer with Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP. "That reporting requirement only applies to Members, officers and certain employees of the Senate, so by definition it is associated with the performance of his official duties."
That Coleman can and is using his campaign funds for legal defense does not necessarily make the move less controversial. The good government group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, has written numerous briefs to the FEC asking the commission to not allow the practice to persist.
"You really have to wonder how many donors, when they donated to Mr. Coleman, knew the money was going to legal expenses and not winning the election, and it seems that voters are being cheated," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW. "In addition, this is personal use, using your campaign funds for legal expenses... It is one thing if someone comes after you because of something you have done in Congress. But in this case it is because you, allegedly, committed a crime."
There are precedents for the path that Coleman has chosen. Sen. Larry Craig, when faced with questions surrounding whether he solicited sex in a public restroom, was admonished for not getting the FEC's approval for using campaign funds for a legal defense. Sen. David Vitter earlier this year failed to get FEC approval to pay legal fees associated with being called as a witness in a prostitution prosecution. The commission did allow Vitter to use campaign funds to pay legal fees associated with a Senate Ethics Committee investigation into that same prostitution allegation. Sen. Stevens, meanwhile, didn't use campaign funds, choosing instead to pay out of pocket and then a legal defense fund.