From the same article ...
"At its meeting, the commission also punted on another high-profile issue — whether Sen. David Vitter can use his campaign funds to cover legal costs associated with his highly publicized entanglement in the trial of “D.C. Madam” Deborah Palfrey.
The Louisiana Republican has spent more than $200,000 on lawyers in connection with the trial and a related Senate Ethics Committee investigation conducted after his phone number turned up among Palfrey’s records in 2007.
The commission split three-to-three on the request, with the Democrats on the panel backing a draft opinion by FEC officials that he be allowed to use some of the money to pay only for legal counsel in the ethics investigation and for so-called “press relation” expenses arising from the Palfrey trial. Those costs were estimated at $31,000.
The Republicans, however, backed a second opinion suggesting that all of the expenses Vitter incurred were related to his status as a public official. Commissioner Matthew Peterson said Vitter was drawn into the case because of his status as a congressman, making the expenses political rather than personal.
“I think pretty plainly the expenses at issue resulted from pretty unofficial activities,” Weintraub retorted.
In the end, the commission could agree only that Vitter could use funds related to his Ethics Committee investigation but left open the question of whether campaign funds could be applied to the rest of his legal expenses. That is now left up to the Ethics Committee, which normally looks to the FEC for guidance. It is possible that the panel will rule Vitter can use his campaign money to cover all his costs."
How is that investigation going into Palfrey's murder, I mean suicide?
