GOP lawmaker has paid little of $500K owed

Over the last three months, Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) didn’t raise any of the roughly $500,000 that the House Ethics Committee has ordered her to pay for violating the chamber’s rules, according to her latest financial filings.

The Ethics panel told Schmidt last August to repay nearly half a million dollars in services she accepted from lawyers with the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund (TALDF), but she has raised a total of only $5,010 so far.

In less than two months the Ohio Republican will leave Congress and will no longer be required to pay back the money, according to people familiar with the chamber’s ethics rules.

A spokesman for Schmidt did not return a request for comment. But Schmidt’s office pointed to a legal expense fund she established as evidence that “she wants to pay these bills,” according to previous remarks made to USA Today.

According to the latest financial filing for her legal expense fund, Schmidt did not raise any money from July through September to meet the Ethics Committee’s mandate. Schmidt paid down part of the legal debt with about $43,000 earlier this year. And she has made two payments of $29 apiece to maintain a P.O Box for the fund.

In its report to the Ethics Committee last year, the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) found that the Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) paid lawyers with the TALDF “approximately $500,000 for legal services provided to Representative Schmidt” over a two-year period.

The committee declined to launch a subcommittee to officially investigate Schmidt, which would have allowed the panel to sanction the four-term lawmaker.

Instead, committee Chairman Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) and ranking member Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) ordered Schmidt to “repay the improper gift” and authorized her to accept contributions through the “Jean Schmidt Legal Expense Trust.”

The committee, in its report, said Schmidt had cooperated extensively with congressional investigators and was unaware that the TCA had paid for her legal services.

“Given the evidence that Representative Schmidt lacked knowledge of the arrangement, the committee does not believe that any sanction is necessary,” the report stated.

And while her actions technically violated House ethics rules, the panel concluded that paying back the roughly $500,000 in services would be sufficient punishment, and it authorized her to raise money through her legal fund to help do so.

The only outside contribution to the fund came in January from Global Eclipse, a Delaware limited liability company that donated $5,000. And though the Ethics Committee approved the company’s contribution, several of Global Eclipse’s top managers have Turkish ties, which raised eyebrows in the press, considering the nature of the allegations first levied against Schmidt.

Schmidt contributed $10 to the legal expense fund last year as well.

Schmidt lost her reelection bid in a March primary to GOP challenger Brad Wenstrup, who made the shadow of the probe and other ethics questions central to his campaign against the incumbent lawmaker. Wenstrup was elected to Schmidt’s seat on Tuesday, beating Democrat William "Butch" Smith.

The legal fees that Schmidt was ordered to pay back arose during a lawsuit she brought in 2010 against her former Democratic opponent, David Krikorian, who she sued, accusing him of making false statements about her during his campaign for the Ohio seat.

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