The Washington Times reports that the Republican National Committee has paid off a quarter million dollars of Sarah Palin’s legal fees. RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen explains:
“That was payment for services she was providing, including a couple speeches, a couple fundraising letters and a telephone call,” Mr. Pullen said. “There was not a contract so far as I know. It was verbal.”
Former RNC Chairman Frank J. Fahrenkopf said he could not recall a similar arrangement for those helping the party build its financial base during his tenure. “Wow. I never paid anyone money to make speeches and sign direct-mail appeals,” Mr. Fahrenkopf said.
Presumably Palin doesn’t want anyone to say that she’s doing fundraising gigs for her own benefit (she’s just a suburban hockey mom fighting to take back America, after all), so instead she worked a deal with the RNC where she’d do fundraising for the party but have part of it kicked back to pay her personal bills. Politics as usual, I guess. But it still baffles me. Palin reportedly has earned upwards of $10 million over the past year and has loads of future earning potential too. So why not just pay the $600,000 legal bill herself and be done with it? It’s chump change for someone as rich as she is.
