New evidence of the utter moral bankruptcy of the Bush Administration is coming along to light so fast it’s hard to keep up. This morning’s clue comes to us from Larry Margasak of the Associated Press:
Key figures in a phone-jamming scheme designed to keep New Hampshire Democrats from voting in 2002 had regular contact with the White House and Republican Party as the plan was unfolding, phone records introduced in criminal court show.
The records show that Bush 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 phone jamming operation was finalized, carried out and then abruptly shut down.
The phone jamming scandal goes back to the 2002 midterms, when Tobin’s operation used repeated hang-up calls to jam phones at a Democratic Party get-out-the-vote center. Tobin was working on behalf of then-Rep. John Sununu Jr., who won a narrow victory over Gov. Jeanne Shaheen for a U.S. Senate seat. A week before the election the race had been too close to call.
The prosecutors in Tobin’s case did not make the White House calls part of their case, although the phone records were an exhibit. “The Justice Department has secured three convictions in the case but hasn’t accused any White House or national Republican officials of wrongdoing, nor made any allegations suggesting party officials outside New Hampshire were involved,” writes Margasak. Apparently the Bush Justice Department prosecuted the case as narrowly as it could. Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee spent millions on Tobin’s defense.
Besides the conviction of Tobin, the Republicans’ New England regional director, prosecutors negotiated two plea bargains: one with a New Hampshire Republican Party official and another with the owner of a telemarketing firm involved in the scheme. The owner of the subcontractor firm whose employees made the hang-up calls is under indictment.
The phone records show that most calls to the White House were from Tobin, who became President Bush’s presidential campaign chairman for the New England region in 2004.
The case is back in the news because the Dems are bringing a civil suit alleging vote fraud (ya think?). Republicans say there are always lots of calls flying around between Republicans on election day.
A Democratic analysis of phone records introduced at Tobin’s criminal trial show he made 115 outgoing calls — mostly to the same number in the White House political affairs office — between Sept. 17 and Nov. 22, 2002. Two dozen of the calls were made from 9:28 a.m. the day before the election through 2:17 a.m. the night after the voting.
There also were other calls between Republican officials during the period that the scheme was hatched and canceled.
Josh Marshall suggests there is “a nexus between the phone-jamming case and the Abramoff scandal,” although it’s not clear to me where the connections are. But check out the TPM “Grand Ole Docket” page.
Update: Why I quit using Google AdSense — The Peking Duck also has a story about Tobin and Phonegate today, but check out the ad in the screen-captured Google adstrip:
Too funny.
In the end, wasn’t it the “nickel and dime stuff” that brought down Nixon and Co.?
On Book Notes this weekend I watched a presentation by Mark Crispin Miller who has written “Fooled Again, How the Right Stole the Election in 2004”. I didn’t know what creedence to consider for his position, but I am sorely wondering what the reality is about 2000, 2004 and what will happen in November. What’s to do? Anybody?
#2, Neil….I have thought a lot about voting machines and vote tally machines which can be hacked in ways in which the vote totals can be changed without consequence, i.e., no trace of the hacks nor no paper trail for verification.
After the 2004 election, I was furious to learn that according to ‘official’ tallies, a significant number of Ohio democrats ‘supposedly’ voted for third party candidates…..gosh, I spent three days there canvassing up to election day and never heard one person who responded to the canvass who had even heard of the third party candidates!
Then I followed the aftermath in which a scarce few tried to get recounts and/or some sort of accounting of this startling outcome. The third party folks put Kerry/Edwards to shame in their all-out effort to get recounts in Ohio. Rep. Conyers did hold hearings, but the Republican controlled House refused to get involved which left Conyers without the subpoena power necessary for a full investigation. And statisticians across the country agreed that the discrepancies between exit polls and ‘official’ tallies made Bush’s win as improbable as winning the lottery.
But, hey….the MSM was johnny-on-the-spot the next morning with a handy-dandy ‘explanation’ about ‘values voters’ swinging the election. That explanation, I believe, was actually a diversion tactic to give the public mind something to chew on instead of wondering too deeply why the exit polls were ‘so wrong’. Too quick and too slick….I have expected rovian tactics like this to repeat themselves in November, and am therefore so very delighted to see the polls putting Bush and Republicans in the toilet
I have refused to give money to the Democrats since then, always refusing in writing with my stated reason for not giving money: I’ve told them that when Democrats attend to the hackable voting equipment BEFORE an election….I will again offer my time and money.
Just recently, DFA [Dean’s brother heads it up] came out with a video about paper trails making horse sense……so I immediately sent them 85 bucks and a note of appreciation.
I cannot abide that those folks I talked to in Cleveland [mostly in black neighborhoods], many of whom had registered to vote for the first time, who were exercised to get Bush out of office, who worked in their areas for Kerry, and who stood in line for hours in a steady cold downpour…..I cannot abide that some hacker might have stolen their votes!
I have had one idea about something to do……I call it the paper-trail pledge/parallel voting system, a grassroots effort to counter the hackable machines. Wherever those machines are used, sign folks up to pledge to vote on paper in a second location [signing in with a notary at this second location] after they have voted on the paper-less machine. At each official voting place, have spotters counting all who enter to vote [to prevent a hack which inflates numbers for a particular candidate] Compare the paper votes to the ‘official’ votes. This check on things could only work if huge numbers of voters signed the pledges, and of course, would mean lots of grassroots work ahead of November.
I have no idea whether my idea is feasible, but sure do agree that something substantial needs to happen to change things before November.
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