L.A.'s Lawyer to the Stars -- and the Majority Leader

What do Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Britney Spears, Bruce Willis, Paris Hilton's ex-boyfriend/videographer Rick Salomon and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have in common?

They've all hired Los Angeles celebrity lawyer Martin Singer, known for his take-no-prisoners style and investigative prowess, to be their attorney.

Seems Reid paid Singer $25,000 on Dec. 14 from his senatorial campaign account for unspecified "legal fees," according to his most recent Federal Election Commission report.

So what prompted Reid to join this prestigious group of clients?

His spokesman, Jon Summers, told our colleague Howard Kurtz that Reid "sought outside counsel regarding his response to the AP story written by John Solomon," now at The Washington Post. The story was about how Reid reported the 2004 sale of land he once owned -- he made a profit of $700,000 on the property, which he had not owned for three years.

Summers said the story was "misleading" and had "inaccuracies." The AP stood by the story, and Reid amended his financial disclosure forms after the report. Reid's amendments are being reviewed by the ethics panel, Summers said.

He said Reid "obtained approval from the ethics committee for this expenditure."

Someone's Getting Bumped

It's always a pain to take your vehicle into the shop for repairs, be told it will take weeks to fix and then get some cheesy loaner in the meantime.

It's even worse when your vehicle is Air Force One. Seems President Bush's 747 is in the shop for an extensive overhaul, a job that could take many months.

The president is always required to have a plane and a standby, in case of emergencies. There's a second 747 ready to go as Air Force One, but his backup now is one of the 757s out of the government fleet of only four such planes. These are used by, among others, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Problem is that two of those four 757s also are undergoing long-term maintenance overhauls. So that leaves only one of the big planes available. Cheney has dibs over Rice, unless he's flying domestic and she's going overseas.

But next week they're both going overseas, Cheney to Asia and Rice on her latest major trip to the Mideast. She is to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and then go on to Berlin for a session with the "Quartet" of would-be peacemakers: the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia.