Young fishes for legal defense funds

Embattled Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) collected $54,000 in cash from fishing- and construction-related companies, longtime friends and a former congressman from Georgia to help defray his legal expenses, according to a legal defense fund disclosure filed with the House.

In the spring and early summer of this year, the period covered in the disclosure, Young’s legal expense fund cut two checks worth a total of nearly $50,000 for legal fees paid to Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.

{mosads}Young has spent more than $1 million in legal fees to Akin Gump through his campaign committee and legal expense fund since the FBI investigation began, diminishing money left for one of the toughest campaigns of his 35 years in Congress. Young faces two GOP primary challengers Aug. 26, and as of the July monthly Federal Election Committee reports, he had just $461,000 in cash on hand.

In June, Congress passed a resolution calling on the Justice Department to look into an unusual change to an earmark Young secured for the a road in Florida that critics say would have benefited a developer who had contributed to him. The FBI also is investigating any ties Young has to Veco Corp., the oil company accused of providing $250,000 in illegal renovations to indicted Sen. Ted Stevens’s (R-Alaska) house. Stevens is accused of making false statements on his financial disclosure forms required by Congress because he did not reveal the renovations as gifts.

Young has denied any wrongdoing and says he is cooperating with investigators.

The majority of the $54,000 Young received in the fund came from fishing and construction companies based in Alaska or the state of Washington.

Former Rep. Billy Evans (D-Ga.) and his wife, Renetta, wrote a $2,000 check, as did William Corbus, the former state revenue commissioner under then-Gov. Frank Murkowski (R).

The companies that gave include: Trident Seafoods Corporation, Seattle-based Aleutian Spray Fisheries, as well as one of its subsidiaries, Starbound, LLCBering Pacific Services Company, Boyer Towing Inc., Cruz Construction Inc., Osborne Construction Company and Tatonduk Outfitters Limited.

Despite the show of support from those close to him, a new poll shows that Stevens’s indictment is taking a toll on Young’s reelection chances.

In a Rasmussen poll released Thursday after Stevens was indicted,  44 percent of Alaska voters questioned said the Stevens’s predicament made it less likely they’d vote for Young, while 41 percent said it wouldn’t influence their decision. Only 12 percent said they are more likely to vote for Young because of the indictment.

The most recent disclosure reports also show that Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) amassed $96,000 in contributions to his legal defense fund from April to the end of June, but he also made $482,000 in payments, $465,297 to lawyers for Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) at Jones Day Law Firm.

In April, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that McDermott must pay more than $1 million to compensate Boehner for his legal fees in their decade-long dispute over a taped cell phone call McDermott leaked to the media.

In 1998, Boehner sued McDermott after the Washington lawmaker obtained a recorded copy of a conversation among Republican leaders, including Boehner, discussing an ethics case against then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). McDermott leaked the phone call to at least two newspapers, and a court ruled in 2004 that McDermott should not have leaked it. Subsequent appeals upheld that ruling and the Supreme Court declined to hear McDermott’s appeal.

The fund had already paid $65,000 to Jones Day late last year.

In addition, Minority Chief Deputy Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) donated $5,000 to retiring Rep. John Doolittle’s (R-Calif.) legal expense fund, a new report shows. Reps. David Dreier (R-Calif.) and Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) also handed over $2,000 and $1,000, respectively.

Boehner and National Republican Campaign Committee Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.) previously donated $5,000 each to the fund.

The fund raised $66,000 last year to cover Doolittle’s mounting legal bills. The FBI has spent the last two years investigating Doolittle’s relationship with imprisoned former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.  The Doolittles have denied any wrongdoing and the FBI raided their home last year as part of the probe.

Meanwhile, Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), who faces trial on 16 counts of corruption, took in just $1,000 in the second-quarter 2008 reporting period. He spent just $2,000. Since Jefferson opened the fund in late 2005, it has pulled in $172,000. Because lawmakers are not required to report available cash on hand, it is unclear how much Jefferson has spent on legal fees.

Rep. Tom Feeney’s (R-Fla.) legal fund reported no contributions and no expenses in the second quarter. But Feeney paid $45,000 in legal fees from his campaign fund. The FBI has looked into a golf trip Feeney took to Scotland with Abramoff in 2003.