The attorney who helped Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul prepare a lawsuit against the National Security Agency and complained in private emails about the way he was treated, now says the issue has been resolved.
“There are speed bumps in any journey, but I am satisfied,” Bruce Fein, the conservative attorney who helped draft Paul’s class action lawsuit against the NSA, said. “I am ready to move forward.”
Fein spoke to msnbc on a conference call hosted by Paul’s political action committee, RANDPAC. Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, another attorney working on the Paul legal team, was on the call as well.
Fein’s ex-wife Mattie Fein told The Washington Post Wednesday that Paul’s team had failed to fully credit or pay her ex-husband for his work. On Thursday, the Post published an email Fein authored in which he expressed dissatisfaction with the way the NSA lawsuit had been handled and demanded payment for his services by February 14. The paper also published an invoice with showing that only $15,000 of the $46,849.96. Fein had charged had been paid.
The Feins are no longer married but have maintained a professional relationship explored in detail by Slate.
On Thursday, Fein said in an email that his ex-wife did not speak for him and that he had “been paid for my work.” Doug Stafford, who runs Rand Paul’s PAC, said Fein was being paid on schedule. As for crediting Fein in the suit, Stafford said Fein was one among a number of people on the legal team. Cuccinelli told msnbc that Fein’s name couldn’t be on the filing because there was “no written retainer agreement that included Bruce.” Cuccinelli said “that was expected to be remedied later.” An earlier version of the NSA filing, published Thursday in the Post, is nearly identical to the final version filed with Cuccinelli’s name on it. Cuccinelli would not address who among the members of the legal team was the primary author of the filing. “It really doesn’t matter whether Godzilla was the author or I was the author, or whether someone else was the author as long as a lawyer who was permitted to file actually filed it,” Cuccinelli said. On Friday, Fein said he was “satisfied those issues have been resolved, I don’t think there’s anything more to say.”
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