Republicans footing phone-jamming defense bill.
Virginia Republicans recently got nailed for illegally eavesdropping on Virginia Democrats’ strategy conference calls (which they’re turning into a new attempted insurance fraud scandal as I write this). Crime as a campaign strategy — that’s low.
On a national level, they go even lower. Today came the news that the Republican Party is footing the substantial legal bill for James Tobin. As an employee of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (not the RNC, so there’s no duty to defend here), Tobin was paid to jam the phone lines of Democratic phone banks in November of ‘02. (There was a squeaker of a race between Republican Rep. John Sununu and Democrat Governor Jean Shaheen.) They set up autodialers to dial the New Hampshire get-out-the-vote centers, which Democrats had established for people like little old ladies who needed a ride to the polls. They even targeted firefighters who had set up a nonpartisan call center to provide rides to the polls. The call centers had to be shut down for the day, because every line was ringing with the automated calls that, when answered, were silent. Sununu won the race.
After Tobin was caught in this, he was hired by President Bush to work for his 2004 reelection campaign, as the campaign chairman for New England (adding insult to injury to New Hampshire voters). It wasn’t until he was indicted that he stepped down from the Bush campaign. He wasn’t fired, mind you — he stepped down. Tobin’s boss at the time of the scandal, Sen. Bill Frist, insists that this is the work of rogue operatives, they had nothing to do with it, etc. (This should all be sounding a little familiar.)
So, today comes the news that the Republican National Committee — not a party to this indictment in any capacity — has paid the entire $700,000 legal bill, and intends to cover all of Tobin’s legal costs.
I see no way to reconcile the RNC’s claims (no dirty tricks, clean campaigns only, would never break the law, etc.) with the reality of their supporting the whole of Tobin’s case. In fact, here’s a statement that RNC chairman Ken Mehlman made just this week, in a comment about an unrelated matter:
The position of the Republican National Committee is simple: We will not tolerate fraud; we will not tolerate intimidation; we will not tolerate suppression. No employee, associate or any person representing the Republican Party who engages in these kinds of acts will remain in that position
This gets more interesting, though. By which I mean it gets more local.
Tobin is accused of conspiring with two other people to put this automated phone-jamming center into effect. One of them is Allen Raymond, who lives here in Virginia (or did at the time). Raymond used to work with Tobin, and he operated a telephone services firm named GOP Marketplace. He helped Tobin implement the plan, paying an Idaho telemarketing company $2,500 to make the calls. (Ain’t subcontracting grand?) He pled guilty, and was sentenced to five months in jail and a $15,600 fine back in February.
Simultaneous to the setup of that phone-jamming center in New Hampshire (described as a “get out the vote call center” by top Republicans at the time), GOP Marketplace was doing some work here in Virginia. On November 1, they received $3,500 from the VA Conservative Alliance for “polling.” VA Conservative Alliance is run by former Republican Party of Virginia chair Patrick McSweeney, with the unsurprising goal of getting conservative Republicans into the General Assembly. Did that $3,500 go for polling? Or is “polling” a euphemism, like “get out the vote call center”?
I don’t have any special knowledge here, but VA Conservative Alliance did pay an amount ($3,500) roughly equivalent to the cost of the New Hampshire phone jamming, in the same week, to the same now-convicted felon. All of this mere months after the Virginia Republicans eavesdropping scandal, during the thick of their coverup.
Paging Ed Matricardi?
4 Comments