Former
congressman Mark Foley is using leftover campaign cash to
pay for the huge legal bills he's racking up defending
himself in the congressional page scandal that led to
his resignation.
Foley spent
$206,000 in campaign cash on attorneys from November to
January, according to recent filings with the Federal
Election Commission. That left about $1.7 million in
the Florida Republican's campaign account March 31,
even after he returned more than $110,000 from donors.
''Many
congressmen, when they resign, they keep the money and do
good things with it. But paying for your legal bills?
I don't think so,'' said Robert Starr, chairman of the
Charlotte County, Fla., Republican Party.
The FEC has ruled
in other cases that such expenditures generally are
lawful.
''I got my 500
bucks back.... I gave him money because I believed in him.
It's not that way anymore,'' Starr said.
Foley's criminal
defense attorney, David Roth, declined comment Thursday.
A telephone message left with the Washington,
D.C.-based law firm that got all the legal
payments from Foley's campaign account was not
immediately returned.
Foley resigned
from Congress in September after being confronted with
sexually explicit Internet communications to male pages who
had worked on Capitol Hill. Soon after, he checked
himself into an Arizona facility for what his
attorneys said was for treatment of ''alcoholism and other
behavioral problems.''
His attorneys at
the time announced Foley was gay and alleged he had been
molested by a priest as a teenage altar boy. They maintain
Foley never had inappropriate sexual contact with
minors.
State and federal
authorities continue to investigate whether Foley broke
any laws through some explicit communications with minors.
(Brian Skoloff, AP)
