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Federal prosecutors have dropped charges against James Tobin in connection with the jamming of Democratic phone lines during the election of 2002. Congressman Paul Hodes, however, does not consider the case closed and insists that all the facts be aired.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.c...
How is it that Republican criminals are not prosecuted?
Former Republican operative James Tobin has been indicted for making false statements to the FBI in connection with the bureau's investigation of a phone-jamming scheme in New Hampshire in 2002, according to court filings examined by TPMmuckraker.
As Dean has diaried, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee has issued a subpoena to the Department of "Justice" for production of documents related to a number of actions (or lack thereof) by the Department, including civil rights enforcement, US Attorney firings, and the investigation and prosecution of the phone jamming case. The phone jamming done to help Senator* John E. Sununu win a US Senate seat.
The deadline is July 7 - yes, we have a countdown of less than seven days to see if the DoJ will be accountable for turning itself into a political arm of the Bush White House. The question is, will DoJ stonewall?
Allen Raymond, notorious executor of the 2002 New Hampshire phone jamming scandal, was on "A" Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight, promoting his new book, How to Rig an Election. It's actually a good interview, and will be re-played tomorrow (Friday) in the 8:00-8:30 PM rerun of tonight's episode.
We all know he did a terrible thing, but he's hard to hate, considering how willing he is to condemn the things for which he was so rightly punished. I know he's peddling a book that he wants to make money on, and probably trying to start a career as a talking head (and perhaps settle the score with some former co-workers who threw him under the bus), but he does seem worth listening to at this point.
PS: in case you didn't know, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" has re-branded itself "A Daily Show with Jon Stewart" for the remainder of the WGA strike; my understanding is that Stewart and Colbert, having shown support for the WGA, were forced to come back on the air without their writers or risk having their staff and crew members laid off. Many people are unwilling to appear on their shows (making money for Comedy Central and AMPTP member Viacom), but the WGA has essentially said it doesn't fault them for crossing the picket lines, since they were basically blackmailed. If anybody can explain the situation better in the comments, please feel free.
Part of me always feels that I'm going a little bit overboard when I speak of the GOP as a crime syndicate. Despite all the evidence to that effect, I guess even I am influenced by the Beltway "rise above partisanship" theme.
But Today's Monitor provides some bracing information. In a story on the Conyers investigation into the phone jamming crimes, it reports:
According to the McClatchy source, the case's original prosecutor, Todd Hinnen, also wanted to bring a criminal case against the New Hampshire Republican Party but was stopped by his superiors.
The New Hampshire GOP: just another Racketeer-Influenced Corrupt Organization.
In a follow up to yesterday's phone jamming story Rep. Conyers has written a new letter to the Department of Justice.
December 20, 2007
The Honorable Michael Mukasey
Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Mr. Attorney General:
On October 3, I (along with several other Members of the House Judiciary Committee) wrote to Acting Attorney General Keisler regarding the Justice Department's handling of the New Hampshire phone jamming case and other matters (letter enclosed). In that case, Republican political operatives jammed the telephones of the New Hampshire Democratic Party and Manchester Fire Fighters Association on Election Day 2002, in an effort to disrupt get out the vote operations. Although over two months have passed, I have yet to receive any response to the questions posed in that letter.
If Tobin is acquitted, prosecutors ought to waste no time finding a different charge on which to indict him - something the appeals court might find less easy to dismiss. Letting him walk free would be a huge scandal, with obvious political overtones, since the national Republican Party has spent more than $3 million defending him.
There's not much I can do about the DoJ slow-walk on the phone jamming crime that helped propel Sununu to victory. Nor can I do much about the bizarre kinda-sorta get-out-of-jail card James Tobin got for his patent role in the crime.
But a free Tobin never paying the price for his perversion of democracy?
I can blog about that from sunrise to sunset from now until next November. If he doesn't serve time, then at least we can use that fact to help create the opposite goal he was pursuing - a legitimate defeat of John Sununu. And let's not forget Raymond's tell-all phone jamming book.
Sounds like a page-turner, out soon from Simon and Schuster--How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Law Breaker.
Allen Raymond was a Republican rising star in 2002, until "pushing the envelope" for his GOP clients landed him in a three-month sentence in jail. He has not been making his former colleagues happy since he got out--for example telling the Boston Globe that Republicans have turned so "ultra-aggressive" and "ruthless" that he feared saying no to James Tobin about jamming phones would shut him out of future business with the RNC.
The RNC, which paid millions in legal bills for Tobin, but nothing for Raymond, is no doubt regretting that decision as they wait for Raymond to publish a much longer version of his bitter memories...especially because Raymond's co-author is...
* How fitting, that on the fifth anniversary of the phone jamming crime, Jeanne Shaheen is beating John Sununu in the latest Survey USA via Roll Call poll by double digits (h/t SSP, sample size around 650, w/ MoE from 3.8-4.0%):
Jeanne Shaheen (D): 53
John Sununu (R-inc): 42
Undecided: 5
Poetic justice, don't you think? And look who's holding the Sprinter to under 50%:
Jay Buckey (D): 36
John Sununu (R-inc): 49
Undecided: 16
* Speaking of Sununu's criminal anniversary, the NHDP held a conference call today on the ongoing, unanswered questions surrounding that assault on Democracy. Said Kathy Sullivan on the DoJ slow-walk (sorry, no linky yet):
"So, I want to know why was the Justice Department dragging its' feet? Who were they talking to? Were they getting instructions from someone?"
Paul Twomey chimed in on the importance of Congressional investigations:
In the civil case, we went as far as we could go with it. As I said, we don't have the right to put people in front of a grand jury, we don't have the right to make people testify to grant them immunity, that's something that Congress can do and the Department of Justice can do. It appears the Department of Justice isn't going to do its job so we're going to rely on Congress and the Congressional Committees to protect the people."
* Jeanne Shaheen now has a campaign manager, Bill Hyers. Bill ran Kirsten Gillibrand's successful upset victory in the House last year, and "also managed the come-from-behind victory of Michael Nutter for Mayor of Philadelphia in 2007," according to the press release. And if that isn't a good enough pedigree for getting a campaign ready for a long fight, he served in the Army in Bosnia. Doesn't sound like the kind of guy who will let the inevitable GOP dirty tricks stand unopposed, does he?
* Quote of the day:
John Sununu is one of the nation's better senators.
...He doesn't believe in funding global warming conspiracy theorists (unlike, say, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee), and he supported drilling in ANWR.
(From the incomparable Betsy Devine... - promoted by Mike Caulfield)
Update: Correction below
Amazingly, even under Paul Hodes's threat of Congressional oversight and the (occasional) spotlight of national press, the Justice Department continues to slow-walk the 2002 NH phone-jamming "investigation."
The latest trick seems to be keeping Andrew Levchuk, the hard-working federal prosecutor the federal prosecutors overseeing the case of James Tobin busy elsewhere with nearly full-time demands. Recent court documents (quotes below the fold) make this clear.
This is of course the same Justice Department that assigned exactly one FBI agent to work part-time investigating the phone-jamming and then prevented said agent from following any leads that led to Washington, DC.
What a great day October 3 was! A confluence of events; congress acting on Paul Hodes request for the Justice Department to turn over records on phone jamming, and the new UNH poll showing Governor Shaheen with a double digit lead over John Sununu! Not to mention the masterful pitching of Josh Beckett last night at Fenway in Game One of the ALDS.
This phone jamming mess rightfully continues to haunt New Hampshire Republicans, their national party, and Sununu. They have stonewalled on phone jamming from day one. I try not to be too much of a wild eyed conspiracy theorist, but I still want to know why Darrell Henry, the gas lobbyist who was in NH to help Sununu's campaign, took the 5th when we wanted to depose him in our civil suit. What else was going on?
In a letter to the Attorney General, House Judiciary Chair John Conyers today acted on Paul Hodes' earlier request for an investigation into possible White House involvement in the phonejamming crime that helped Sununu get elected in 2002. From the letter:
The most important open issue is whether the possible role of White House officials and Republican Party political leaders has been sufficiently investigated. Twenty-two phone calls were exchanged between New Hampshire Republican officials and the White House Office of Political Affairs starting at 11:20 am on election day 2002 and running past 2:00 am on election night, and one hundred and ten calls were placed between James Tobin and the White House in the two months surrounding the election.
...Despite this compelling evidence of Washington involvement in the election day jamming of Democratic phone lines, however, the FBI Special Agent working this matter allegedly was instructed not to follow investigative leads back to Washington.
And that's just a taste of what doesn't pass the sniff test. Read the letter in full below the fold, and then ask yourself: if the DoJ hadn't slow walked the investigation of this crime in the first place, would it still have been hanging around in 2007 to remind voters of one big reason why Sununu perhaps never should have been our senator? Crime doesn't pay, and neither does the coverup, I guess.
Conyers is requesting an answer by the 19th. That should give us plenty of time to finalize a plan to honor the 5th anniversary of this dirty trick.
Thursday update: Ray Buckley makes a good point:
"Nearly five years after this crime against the voters of New Hampshire, we are still waiting for a strong condemnation from John Sununu. John Sununu has yet to voice any support for the efforts of Paul Hodes for a congressional investigation into the events surrounding the 2002 election, even though he was a direct beneficiary of these criminal acts. Where is John E. Sununu, and why is he once again failing to demand accountability from the White House and the Justice Department?"
(Another great update by Betsy. And please consider thanking Paul Hodes for drawing attention to this crime by contributing to him through ActBlue (look for "ActBlue Hampshire" on the left-hand margin). - promoted by Dean Barker)
"The Bush administration has spent a lot of time talking about mythical cases of voter fraud and election improprieties," says the editorial in today's NY Times, "but the New Hampshire phone jamming case was the real thing."
Amen!!
The Times is endorsing the recent request by Representative Paul Hodes for a Congressional investigation, citing multiple actions by the now-disgraced Department of Justice that left many avenues unexplored or even blocked.
In other phone-jamming news, James Tobin's lawyers filed a motion (on September 14) for a Judgment of Acquittal on grounds that seem to me completely outrageous...more below the fold.
My fellow phone jammer fighter Paul Twomey called to tell me that the NY Times has an editorial today urging the House Oversight Committee to follow up on the letter from Congressman Paul Hodes calling for an investigation into phone jamming. It is a great editorial, and calls the phone jamming exactly what it was: a direct attack on our American democracy.
Hopefully, with the NY Times jumping in on the side of truth, justice, the American way and Paul Hodes, Chairman Waxman will start the inquiry!
(Good thing Paul called me; they didn't deliver my NY Times today!)
Today brings news that 5 million plus e-mail messages were deleted from the White House e-mail system, in apparent violation of federal law.
Also, the RNC has been deliberately purging e-mail messages once they get to be 30 days old.
Hmmm.... Remember those phone calls from James Tobin to the RNC, right around the time of the phone-jamming? And how nothing ever surfaced to explain their nature?
Fortunately, Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove have full confidence in the ability of US Attorney Tom Colantunono to get to the bottom of this. That's why he kept his job, right?
Many new voices are now asking why the Federal investigation of the NH's 2002 phone-jamming scandal moved so slowly. (Paul Krugman called it a "slow-walk.")
How long should it take the US Department of Justice--and NH's Bush-appointed US Attorney Thomas Colantuono--to investigate phone-jamming? Just for comparison, in Virginia in 2002, a GOP official was indicted in April of 2002 for a phone-crime committed in March of 2002.
If you're new to this angle, or wondering where to dig further, this post would be a very good place to start.
(Of course Sununu wants to distance himself from Gonzales. After all, he had no problems justifying Gonzales' taste for torture when he wasn't near an election cycle. - promoted by Dean)
AP has the story!
Just hours after President Bush expressed confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Sununu told the AP, "I think the president should replace him."
Interesting...Sununu was first elected to the Senate in 2002, in a close race against former Governor Jeanne Shaheen. NH's own US Attorney Thomas Colantuono (not one of those fired) has been under some scrutiny of his own for what Krugman called, in the March 12 NYT, a "slow-walk" of the phone-jamming case.
(This is a excellent question. - promoted by Mike)
UPDATE:Thanks to hannah for pointing out the much more detailed examination of the case by Betsy Devine, now topping the Rec list at DailyKos.
The case of the fired prosecutors is exposing an ethical morass in which Republican incumbents felt free to intimidate federal prosecutors. Senator Domenici and Congresswoman Wilson called US Attorney Iglesias to "learn the status" of an investigation into one case. Congressman Hastings called the US Attorney in Washington State to "learn the status" of an investigation into the Governor's election there.
Anyone who has ever held a job knows that these calls are intended to exert pressure, and the prosecutors have testified under oath that they felt pressured. Domenici has hired his own attorney.
In the sort of environment where Republicans in Congress consider federal prosecutors underlings, would the investigation and prosecution of the 2002 phone jamming case have proceeded with no such inquiries? [more]
(From the diaries, slightly edited. We will be keeping a close eye on the phonejamming story, especially with Sununu's seat coming up. - promoted by Dean)
As many blogoholics will probably know, the Republican Party has already come to the aid of our Democratic Governor, John Lynch, by coming up with an ingenious form of funding for our state education system; the NRCC will pay for it. The NRCC and National Republicans already could face up to $100 Million, and hypothedically $1 BILLION in fines due to its illegal voter suppression in this year's Elections. If you missed it, check out Republic Not Empire's post about it on the DailyKos.
How could the problem get any worse for the Republican Party? How about $4.1 Million directly into NHDP Coffers to us help challenge John Sununu in 2008?
The New Hampshire Democratic Party says the state and national Republican committees should pay it $4.1 million in damages for an illegal get-out-the-vote phone-jamming operation on Election Day 2002.[?]
Kevin Arceneaux, an assistant political science professor at Temple University, issued written expert testimony that the Democrats spent $9.3 million on "field-related activities" from April 1, 2002 to election day. He reported that the phone-jam "derailed their plan and vitiated (impaired) the NHDP's ability to carry out a full and complete Election Day get-out-the-vote."
Arceneaux reasoned that the Democrats lost "four hours (or 44.4 percent) of get-out-the-vote work during the crucial nine-hour window" of 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. He then assessed the damages at 44.4 percent of the entire $9.3 million get-out-the-vote cost and arrived at $4,143,077.
