Left-wing loon Jim McDermott is know for going to foreign countries to make treasonous statements in support of our nation's enemies. Democrats, of course, call this "dissent" and label it "the highest form of patriotism".

Fine. I won't get into that political question with them.

But will they at least act against their law-breaking colleague after he has been slapped down twice by courts for breaking federal law on wiretapping?

federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Rep. Jim McDermott violated federal law by turning over an illegally taped telephone call to reporters nearly a decade ago.

In a 2-1 opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower court ruling that McDermott violated the rights of Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, who was heard on the 1996 call involving then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.

The court ordered McDermott to pay Boehner more than $700,000 for leaking the taped conversation. The figure includes $60,000 in damages and at least $600,000 in legal costs.

McDermott, D-Wash., has acknowledged leaking a tape of a 1996 cell phone call involving Gingrich to The New York Times and other news organizations.

The call included discussion by Gingrich and other House GOP leaders about a House ethics committee investigation of Gingrich. Boehner was a Gingrich lieutenant at the time and is now House majority leader.

* * *

McDermott was never charged with a criminal offense, but Boehner later filed a lawsuit accusing McDermott of violating state and federal wiretapping laws. A federal judge ruled in Boehner's favor in 2004, a ruling that was upheld Tuesday by the appeals court.

"Because there was no genuine dispute that Representative McDermott knew the Martins had illegally intercepted the conversation, he did not lawfully obtain the tape from them," Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote in an opinion shared by Chief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg.

In other words, the Clinton "Justice" Department (a misnomer if there ever was one) refused to prosecute a clear violation of the law against one of their important partisan allies. It took one of the victims filing a civil suit against McDermott to get any justice -- and this unethical little weasel still does not admit his own wrong-doing.

I'll just ask one question -- would Democrats be so passive on this matter if the law-breaker in this case had been Tom Delay, and the illegal recording had been of Democrats? I think we all know the answer.

Oh, and what does this say about Democrat opposition to undeniably illegal domestic spying?

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