April 11, 2006
The NH Phone Jamming Scandal: New News Really New?
Democrats call this news earth-shattering:
" ... records show that Republican campaign operative James Tobin, who recently was convicted in the case, made two dozen calls to the White House within a three-day period around Election Day 2002 as the jamming operation was finalized, carried out and then abruptly shut down."
This morning, DNC chairman Howard Dean wrote to his RNC counterpart, Ken Mehlman, who in '02 was the White House political director.
Wrote Dean:
"You have often spoken of the importance of making sure that every vote counts. In that spirit, we hope that you will take the necessary steps to clear up the lingering confusion surrounding the RNC and the White House's role in this scandal by answering these questions: James Tobin called the White House two dozen times in three days. Whom was he calling? With whom did he speak? Whom did he work with in the office of political affairs?"
RNC chairman Ken Mehlman released a statement late today: "As White House political director during the 2002 election cycle, my staff and I regularly communicated with competitive Congressional campaigns and Republican Party organizations. One of the most competitive was the Senate race in New Hampshire and throughout the election season and Election Day, Alicia Davis, my deputy responsible for the Northeast, frequently communicated with the New Hampshire State Party, the RNC and others. To be clear, none of my conversations nor the conversations of my staff, involved discussion of the phone-jamming incident. While I have profound policy disagreements with Chairman Dean, I have always tried to maintain what he and I discussed when we were first elected: keep it to the issues."
Up in NH, state Dems don't want a judge to remove the RNC from a long-standing civil suit against the NH GOP.
On behalf of the NH Dems, a Dem interest group, the Senate Majority Project, filed an affidavit with the judge today detailing their study of Tobin's phone records. That study formed the basis for the AP story.
What's really behind the story? Read on... [MARC AMBINDER]
Chuck McGee, the former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party, was convicted of conspiring to block Democratic GOTV efforts on election day in NH in 2002. McGee spent $15K to jam the telephone lines of a firefighters' union that was transporting voters to the polls in Manchester. Five Dem phone centers were also targeted. A phone company discovered the jamming and stopped it at about 11 a.m. on election day; the first reports about the episode were published a few days after the election.
McGee cooperated with federal prosecutors; James Tobin, then on contract as the NRSC's northeast regional political director, was found by the government to have been involved. He was recently convicted of telephone harassment and has appealed. And that's where the investigation of national Republican officials apparently stopped.
During the trial, prosecutors discovered that Tobin's phone logs showed he had numerous telephone contacts with the White House's Office of Political Affairs and the Republican National Committee.
This is an episode that Republicans would rather not deal with at the moment. The party has its hands full fending off charges of congressional corruption.
But the Republican National Committee, out of perhaps commendable (and perhaps foolhardly) loyalty to one of their own, has paid for Mr. Tobin's legal bills. (Tobin, at the time charges were brought against him, was the regional BC04 chair for NE; the RNC did not pay for McGee's expenses.)
That opening has allowed national Dems to pound away -- what did the RNC know? What did Tobin's boss know? Why did Tobin call the White House so many times? Democrats believe that the RNC, by paying for Tobin's defense, essentially bought his silence.
According to sources with knowledge of the trial and of the depositions given by major witnesses, McGee did not implicate anyone but Tobin (and, in fact, explicitly said that they worked to keep others from learning about it, fearing their disapproval) and Tobin, even when threatened with the probability of a conviction, insisted that no one higher than he in the Republican election operation of 2002 had any inkling of it, either.
Why would Tobin call the White House?
It's hard to imagine an NRSC regional political director NOT calling the White House multiple times per day in the run-up to the election. Tobin spoke frequently to WH associate political director Alicia Davis, responsible at the time for the northeast region of the country.
Tobin similarly would have ample reason, in the course of his normal duties, to speak daily with the RNC's northeastern political director and to the RNC's political director at the time, Terry Nelson.
In other words, there is nothing inherently significant about Tobin's calls to the White House.
There may well be other evidence that implicates bigger fish than Tobin -- but this ain't it.
The specter of organized party corruption is too juicy for Democrats to pass up and tactical revelations from the Dem civil suit remain a legitimate worry to Republicans. But there is also a personal dimension to the back-and-forth.
For example, Tobin's nominal NRSC boss was Chris LaCivita, who engineered the Swift Boat ads in the '04 election and is a top consultant now to Sen. George Allen.
Nelson became the political director of Bush-Cheney '04 and has just signed on to help Sen. John McCain prepare for a presidential run.
And who runs the Senate Majority Project? Mike Gehrke, one of the party's top oppo researchers. At the time of the phone jamming, he was research dir. of the DSCC. '04, he was research dir. of the Kerry campaign.
Posted at 02:44 PM
Comments
McGee testified under oath that well-connected lobbyist Darrell Henry surprised him on Election Day with his extensive knowledge of the phone-jamming. http://BetsyDevine.weblogger.com/2006/03/25#a2661
You should ask the person who informed you otherwise if his intention is to inform you, or to spin you.
In fact, when it was reported that feds planned a fourth indictment in the case, there were quite a few other well-known names possible. http://BetsyDevine.weblogger.com/2006/03/25#a2661
Betsy Devine | 04.11.06 03:25 PM
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I posted the name of Alicia Davis as Tobin's White House contact at 1:49 AM CDT 4/11/2006 on Daily Kos.
You can read more about Davis here:
http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/story/2006/4/11/23448/5201
wanderindiana | 04.12.06 01:28 AM
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Still think no new news?
From http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000344.php
NH GOP Strategist Made Call to the White House after Consulting Lawyer
By Paul Kiel - April 11, 2006, 2:29 PM
The AP, in their story on calls to the White House, noted one call in particular, a 17 minute call from Jayne Millerick, then a GOP strategist working on the 2002 election. This was with the same number at the White House's Office of Political Affairs that James Tobin called so frequently.
The AP simply noted the call, and reported Millerick as saying that she "did not recall the subject" and that she hadn't learned of the plot until after the election.
But details from the phone records analyized by the Senate Majority Project suggest that Millerick was fully aware of the plot to jam the New Hampshire Democratic Party's phone lines and seriously concerned about its legality on the day of the jamming. If that's true, it suggests that the jamming was definitely on her mind when she phoned the White House on the afternoon of the crime. That call lasted from 2:59 PM to 3:16 PM.
Millerick made a run of calls on the day of the jamming that suggest that she was looking for legal advice:
At 10:32 AM on Election Day, for example, Millerick phoned the law firm of Nixon Peabody. It's been previously reported that former NH GOP chair John Dowd had ordered the jamming stopped after receiving legal advice from a lawyer named David Vicinanzo on Election Day morning. Nixon Peabody is Vicinanzo's firm.
Immediately following the call to that law firm, Jayne Millerick placed three calls to David Horan, a criminal defense attorney.
When contacted by phone by TPMmuckraker.com, Millerick again asserted that she'd known nothing about the jamming until after the election. When asked about the calls to these lawyers, she said that she wanted to review the records before commenting. She has not replied since receiving the records.
Late Update: We've posted the call analysis for you to see here. Millerick's calls to the lawyers are on page 2, and her call to the White House is on page 4.
bob | 04.12.06 03:20 PM
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Lotto winners - face to face with Bigfoot!
or what to do with an extra 75 million dollars.
yauhenWinn | 02.05.07 11:23 AM
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