Matt Blunt pays more mysterious legal fees in Q2

Submitted by Howard Beale on Wed, 07/16/2008 - 7:40am.

­Matt Blunt's campaign finance report for the second quarter shows that his campaign spent more than $27,000 on "legal fees" in the period spanning the months of April, May and June, raising questions about just what sort of circumstance would require such substantial expenditures on outside attorneys.

As listed below, Missourians for Matt Blunt made four payments to Kansas City based Lathrop & Gage law firm on three different dates, including a massive $25,000 payment on the last day of the quarter. 

Lathrop & Gage L.C.
06/30/2008Legal Fees
0		$885.00
Paid
Lathrop & Gage L.C.
06/30/2008Legal Fees
0		$25,372.47
Paid
Lathrop & Gage L.C.
06/23/2008Legal Fees
0		$324.50
Paid
Lathrop & Gage L.C.
05/22/2008Legal Fees
0		$1,306.80
Paid­
­

It should be noted that these legal expenses are unrelated to Blunt's legal defense in the ongoing lawsuit against him and several members of his administration brought by Scott Eckersley.  In that case, taxpayers are footing the bill for the attorneys of Blunt and the other defendants. 

­ Readers will remember that this isn't the first time questions have been raised about Blunt's use of campaign cash for attorney fees.  Similar issues arose when Blunt used campaign funds to hire a criminal defense attorney in connection with the federal fee office investigation and when similar fees showed up on subsequent reports.

So, to ask a question we've asked before, what gives with all this money Blunt's campaign is paying to lawyers?

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Blunt Legal Troubles

Submitted by J. Carter on Wed, 07/16/2008 - 10:34am.
Very interesting Mr. Beale. As you know, the ethics commission wants expenses reported on an "accrual" basis, meaning that Blunt needs to report expenses as they are accrued, not on a "cash" basis, i.e. when he writes the check. Since Law firms usually bill on a monthly basis, it seems safe to say that the 25,000 in fees paid on the last day of the quarter were for one month's worth of work. At $300 an hour that means Lathrop put in around 85 hours for Blunt's campaign on some problem in May or June. That's a lot of work in a short period of time. The kind of work you would do if you had a serious crisis, like just as an example a subpoena to respond to or a U.S. Attorney you had to get back to or something like that.   If these were just routine campaign finance compliance mattes, you wouldn't see such a large amount of work in such a short period of time.
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