Free Republic

Donald Trump's using campaign donations to cover legal bills has become a hot topic in the media as they seek to undermine his campaign. However, he's not the only presidential candidate who has used campaign donations to cover legal expenses. According to a new report from Axios, Joe Biden similarly utilized campaign donations to pay his legal expenses last year during the special counsel investigation into his mishandling of classified documents. Axios spoke with two sources familiar with the situation and conducted its own review of campaign finance documents to corroborate this.This is a rather significant revelation because, as the...

Michael Cohen, who served as former President Trump’s personal attorney, called. the former president an “idiot” for not paying his alleged co-conspirators’ legal bills in the Georgia election case. Cohen questioned Monday why Trump would not pay the legal bills for his other codefendants who were indicted in Fulton County, Ga. — such as attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis. “Donald’s an idiot,” Cohen told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source.” “Let me just be very clear when it comes to paying money, he is truly an idiot. He has not learned yet that … three people you don’t want...

An expanding special counsel probe into the Trump campaign's alleged Russian ties has saddled many of President Trump's current and former associates with hefty legal fees and left them few options for footing the bill. More than a dozen people, including the president and vice president, are known to have hired attorneys to help them navigate special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation and several additional probes in Congress. Some have complained about the burden of paying for their legal bills without assistance from the wealthy president whose campaign is in the crosshairs of federal investigators. "It's very expensive and nobody's called...

TAMPA — Radio DJ Todd Schnitt and his wife, Michelle, were hit Friday with nearly $700,000 in legal fees the couple had refused to pay after losing a defamation trial against rival shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge Clem in 2013. Handing a victory to the Schnitts' former attorneys at the law firm of Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, a jury found the couple's claims of legal malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty baseless. After considering the case for nearly a day and a half, the six-person jury cleared the firm, along with the Schnitts' former attorney C. Philip Campbell, of...

  NLPC yesterday filed a Complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) violated the Federal Election Campaign Act by using almost $400,000 in funds from his National Leadership PAC to pay legal bills related to the House Ethics Committee actions against him. The Committee yesterday referred a censure resolution to the entire House after earlier this month finding Rangel guilty of violating House rules on 11 counts. Click here to download an 11-page pdf of the Complaint.As the Complaint points out: Members of Congress may use funds from their personal re-election committees for...

Activists charge that Obama has spent millions to silence them in court. Not exactly, say the government’s lawyers. ### Is President Barack Obama spending millions of dollars to hide the truth about his citizenship? During Obama's 2008 run for the White House, his campaign and a host of other credible sources repeatedly debunked the conspiracy theory that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, and was thus ineligible to serve as president. But this failed to quell the "birther" movement, whose acolytes have filed more than 60 civil lawsuits challenging the president's citizenship. None of these suits have gone anywhere...

Fair Game They Left Fannie Mae, but We Got the Legal Bills By GRETCHEN MORGENSON PRECISELY one year ago, we lucky taxpayers took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giants that contributed mightily to the wild and crazy home-loan-boom-turned-bust. In that rescue operation, the Treasury agreed to pony up as much as $200 billion to keep Fannie in the black, coughing up cash whenever its liabilities exceed its assets. According to the company’s most recent quarterly financial statement, the Treasury will, by Sept. 30, have handed over $45 billion to shore up the company’s net worth. It...

<p>FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON ON NOT CAPTURING BIN LADEN: 'At least I tried. That's the difference between me and some, including all the right wingers. They ridicule me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed'...</p>

Private attorneys for former Mayor Dick Murphy and four City Council members have adamantly opposed releasing their legal bills from the ongoing pension investigation and have threatened to take the city to court to keep the information from getting out. So far, the lawyers have charged more than $1.5 million, but no details from the invoices have been disclosed. Documents released last night to The San Diego Union-Tribune show the extent to which the politicians' attorneys are fighting to keep the billings secret. The request for the billings, made by the Union-Tribune under the state Public Records Act, has led...

Former United States President Bill Clinton has bought a holiday home at an exclusive Irish Golf Club it emerged today. Mr. Clinton who was this week pictured playing golf at Royal County Down is expected to take over the duplex at the K Club in Kildare County later this summer.His purchase includes two full memberships at the Irish course, which is host to the Ryder Cup Golf Competition [between the United States and Europe] in 2006.He is said to have been invoved in negotiations with developers over a number of months and to have deferred the deal on several occasions.Prices...

The Washington, D.C. powerhouse lawfirm Williams & Connolly has stopped trying to collect on an estimated $9 million of outstanding legal debt run up by Bill and Hillary Clinton since 1994, the New York Post reported over the weekend. Williams & Connolly "long ago wrote off 80 percent of what President Bill Clinton owed," Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams contended, adding, "The lawfirm has already written off the majority of its $11 million outstanding." The Post said the former first couple had paid just $2 million of the amount owed. "Williams & Connolly loved its p.r. and what (the Clintons)...

The chairman of a Washington, D.C.-based legal watchdog group said Saturday that he would challenge a claim filed by ex-President Clinton and his wife Hillary for reimbursement of millions of dollars in legal fees they incurred during the Whitewater probe. "We'll do it," said Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman. "We have to do it. We can't look the other way." The subject of the Clintons' Whitewater claim came up on Judicial Watch's weekend radio broadcast during an exchange with guest Dick Morris, the Clinton's one-time top political adviser. MORRIS: This motion by the Clintons for monies they actually never spent...