Why Would Orrin Hatch Need a Defense Fund?
Via CREW, CQ has an article on the Members of Congress who have legal defense funds. Most of those listed make sense–there have active legal battles that they’re going to have to pay for:
Jim McDermott: John Boehner’s successful lawsuit holding McDermott responsible for leaking a secretly taped conversation among Republican Congressmen
John Kerry: His ongoing battle with the Swiftboaters
Corrine Brown, FL: (This one I don’t know)
William Jefferson: the $90,000 in the freezer
John Doolittle: Abramoff
Phil English: Lawsuits and other potential legal problems
Tom Feeney: Abramoff
And then there are Orrin Hatch and Brad Miller, both of whom have legal funds that haven’t accepted any donations this year (though Miller’s has paid out some money to a law firm).
Now, Orrin’s legal defense fund looks like it has long been inactive. It appears he has it just sitting there, in case he’ll ever need it. So why is he keeping it around?
And while we’re asking questions, you think Charlie Rangel might explain why he donated $10,000 to Jefferson’s legal defense fund? Or, even more curiously, why Orrin Hatch donated $10,000 to Doolittle? Is this just African-American and Mormon solidarity, respectively?