The Klarides Deception. Two House Republican Campaign Committees Paid $24k in Legal Fees in December.

The federal investigation was over. There was nothing to it. That was the party line spouted by state Representative Themis Klarides in her bid to become the leader of the House Republicans after November’s legislative elections. Klarides and her puppet master, outgoing beleaguered leader Lawrence Cafero, insisted that a federal criminal investigation into House Republican campaign practices was an illusion. No one seems to have been able to obtain a clearance letter from the feds.

While Klarides and Cafero were herding the caucus sheep in her contest against Jason “Mittens” Perillo, the House Republican Campaign Committee (HRCC) was incurring $18,400.48 more in legal fees to the Hartford firm of Shipman & Goodwin between October 27th and December 23rd, when the hefty payment was made, according to campaign finance records. Legal fees consumed more than a third of the committee’s expenditures during the reporting period.

New Friends PAC, another Republican committee under scrutiny, paid $6,113.82 to Shipman & Goodwin on December 15th for “legal and data assistance.” That represented more than half of the campaign committee’s expenses.

House Republican caucus members may want to ask their leaders why so much of their scarce campaign resources was spent on legal fees. That’s money that could have been spent on campaigns. HRCC ended the year with a paltry $4,577.60 on hand as 2014 ended.  New Friends had just over $2,000 left.