By Kathleen Hunter, CQ Staff

Money has now changed hands in the unusual and protracted lawsuit that Rep. John A. Boehner won against Rep. Jim McDermott .

The legal defense fund for McDermott, a Washington Democrat, late last year forwarded Boehner, an Ohio Republican, $50,000 in court-ordered punitive damages, $10,000 in statutory damages and another $4,169 in interest. Although the transaction was made through the Jones Day law firm in December, it became public Wednesday with the filing of a required disclosure report.

The payments, which aides to both lawmakers confirmed, come from an unusual member-vs.-member case that Boehner filed long before he became the House Republican leader.

Decadelong Struggle

Boehner sued McDermott in 1998, accusing him of leaking the contents of a conference call that a Florida couple had illegally taped from Boehner’s cell phone in 1996.

In the call, Republican leaders, including then-Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, discussed responding to ethics allegations against Gingrich, who served in the House from 1979 to 1999 and as Speaker from 1995 to 1999.

McDermott at the time was serving as the ranking Democrat on the House ethics committee.

Over the years and through many layers of courts, McDermott argued that he was exercising his First Amendment rights and did not break the law because he did not participate in obtaining the information that he passed along to selected reporters.

Finally, in December 2007, the Supreme Court refused to review a federal appeals court ruling in Boehner’s favor.

McDermott’s fund transferred the money two days later. A Boehner aide said the money was deposited to the account of “Friends of John Boehner,” his re-election committee.

That money may be just a slice of what McDermott ultimately has to pay; he also has been ordered to pay the winning side’s attorney’s fees. A Boehner aide estimated the tab at more than $850,000, but a U.S. District Court judge has not yet determined exactly how much McDermott will owe.

The McDermott defense fund filing showed the account taking in $56,149 during the final three months of 2007, for a full-year total of slightly more than $100,000.

Other Legal Funds

Although Jan. 30 was the deadline for House lawmakers with legal expense funds to file quarterly reports with the Clerk of the House, disclosure reports for some of the active funds had not yet been made public as of Wednesday afternoon.

Among those beating the deadline was Democrat Brad Miller of North Carolina, who disclosed collecting $30,500 in legal expense fund donations during the last quarter of 2007 — roughly enough to cover $30,000 in legal bills that came due during the fall.

Miller established his fund in 2004 to help defray the costs of a defamation lawsuit brought against him by his 2002 election opponent, Carolyn Grant.

In addition, the filings showed that the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, as the ethics panel is formally known, had quietly given approval on Jan. 9 for Republican Don Young of Alaska to set up a legal expense fund.

Young, whose dealings with Alaska oil services company VECO have been widely reported to be the subject of a federal criminal probe, has not yet reported any donations to the fund.