Rep. Jean Schmidt
WASHINGTON—Embattled GOP Representative Jeanne Schmidt is having a tough time raising funds for the roughly $500,000 that the House Ethics Committee fined her to pay, reported Jordy Yager of The Hill.
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 only $5,000 so far.
In five 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 that she established as evidence that, “she wants to pay these bills,” according to previous remarks made to USA Today.
But according to the latest financial filing this week for the fund, Schmidt did not raise any money from April through June to meet the Ethics committee’s mandate. Schmidt paid down part of the legal debt with about $43,000 earlier this year.
Read the entire article published in The Hill.
