Participants in Phone-Jamming Scheme Contacted White House

[LiberalHeart]

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.

More:
http://www.wtol.com/Global/story.asp?S=4751713

[mdmc]

1. what is phone jamming

[Beetwasher]

2. Operatives Call Dem Offices So No Other Calls Can Get Through

It disrupts the operation and people who want to call the Dem offices for rides to polling places or directions can't get through. It's totally illegal.

[mdmc]

8. thanks

peace and low stress

[wurzel]

5. I think they called dems offering rides to polls for their supporters.

Then they kept their own phones off the hook to prevent the dems from receiving further calls.

[POAS]

20. The illegal activity as I heard

it described involved a computerized phone system used by a telemarketing firm to repeatedly dial into the phone banks set up by the Democrats on and about election day.

The phone banks were being used to get out the vote and to coordinate the various staff and volunteers.

I believe the convictions were for disruption of a public service (the telephone system).

[Judi Lynn]

21. Also, they tied up the local firefighters the morning of the election.

The firefighters, according to the article, were offering rides to the polls, as well. Their phones were disabled.

[wurzel]

45. That has been kept very quiet.

[Trillo]

3. This sounds like RICO should be used. (n/t)

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

9. I have said so for years...

...concerning the behavior of Bushco, Carlyle Group and GOP fundraising. The proof on just how it is all interlinked in a racket becomes more evident by the day, thanks to Abramoff, Delay, Diebold, Blackwell and the list goes on. How much more proof is needed?


PS: Does anyone else recall Karl Rove having 9? laptop computers running in the White House conference room on eleciton night 2004? So he could "monitor election results"? It seemed curious to me.

[Supersedeas]

4. wonder if the Network outlets will have the integrity to touch this story

i'm guess NO WAY!!!

[LiberalHeart]

13. The bottom of the article says CBS contributed to report. (n/t)

[ldf]

33. cbs is good about barely mentioning something

and then dropping it down the memory hole.

don't expect much from cbs.

i had hopes they would buck the trend, but they seem as indebted as the others.

nbc is not even an option.

i'm back to reluctantly watching abc. our choices are few, to none.

on second edit attempt:

DAMN! i just read the thread about abc favoring "good news" iraq stories, since daddy bush "challenged" them to do so.

:grr:

[LiberalHeart]

14. Oops. I'm wrong...

CBS contributed to another report I posted elsewhere. Never mind.

Guess I'll have to watch the news to see the answer to your question.

[Rex]

6. Wonder if they talked to Rove directly?

Scum-sucking cheaters, this is why our country hangs in a perilous balance - cheating GOPers who will do whatever it takes to stay in power.

[SammyBlue]

7. Wow! This will go down as the most corrupt, dishonest, fraudulent admin

in the history of the United States. Even worse than Grant's admin. (Hey, he was a Republican too)

Let's go through our Republicans and their big scandals/screwed up agenda.

Lincoln - None
Grant - Graft and corruption
Hayes - Bought election
Garfield - Assassinated before the damage could be done
Arthur - Possibly Born in Canada
Harrison - Corporate Graft
McKinley - Blowing up a Naval ship to provoke a war
Roosevelt - None
Taft - Tariff scandal
Harding - Died before any damage could be done
Coolidge - Corporate corruption
Hoover - No Depression relief
Eisenhower - None. . .last good Republican
Nixon - Watergate
Ford - None. Impotent President
Reagan - Iran Contra
Bush 1 - Just plain stupid
Bush 2 - Too numerous to mention

Out of the 18 GOP Presidents, only 5 have done nothing. . .2 because of death, 1 because of political impotence. So, only 2/18 GOP Presidents have helped, not hurt, this country.

Jesus Christ! 11%

[displacedtexan]

10. Teddy R. was the reason for the first campaign finance laws

http://www.h-net.org/~hns/articles/1999/102199a.html

Ever since Watergate, campaign finance reformers have come to expect great legislative victories in the wake of presidential funding scandals. After all, most federal campaign finance laws on the books today were enacted in response to just two scandals: Watergate in the 1970s and an earlier scandal in Theodore Roosevelt's 1904 campaign.

[DBoon]

11. Harding = Teapot Dome

Worst scandal-ridden administration since Grant and until Nixon

[stevedeshazer]

23. Ford: East Timor

FORD, KISSINGER AND THE INDONESIAN INVASION, 1975-76

Ford and Kissinger Gave Green Light to
Indonesia's Invasion of East Timor, 1975:
New Documents Detail Conversations with Suharto

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 62
Edited by William Burr and Michael L. Evans

link: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/

:(

<snip>

Operation Komodo, a general invasion of East Timor, commenced the next day. In the following weeks a series of United Nations resolutions—supported by the U.S.—called for the withdrawal of the Indonesian troops. An estimated 20,000 Indonesian troops were deployed to the region by the end of the month. While casualty estimates vary, anywhere from 60,000-100,000 Timorese were probably killed in the first year after the violence began in 1975. In 1979 the U.S. Agency for International Development estimated that 300,000 East Timorese—nearly half the population—had been uprooted and moved into camps controlled by Indonesian armed forces. By 1980 the occupation had left more than 100,000 dead from military action, starvation or disease, with some estimates running as high as 230,000.

[stevedeshazer]

24. Plus, Ford's Secretary of Defense was Donald Rumsfeld

Chief of Staff: Dick Cheney

[wordpix2]

28. Tobin called nearly 115 times to WH political office but WH calls not

part of the case? :wtf: :puke:

snip: A GOP campaign consultant in 2002, Jayne Millerick, made a 17-minute call to the White House on Election Day, but said in an interview she did not recall the subject. Millerick, who later became the New Hampshire GOP chairwoman, said in an interview she did not learn of the jamming until after the election.

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 September 17 and November 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.

[DoYouEverWonder]

30. Isn't it illegal to run a political campaign out of the WH

Remember when they went after Al Gore for allegedly making a few fund raising calls from there?

[wordpix2]

32. this WH care about little issues like legalities? I don't think so

[wordpix2]

31. Bush I didn't start Gulf War vs. Saddam until he got close to W's oil

fields owned by Harken Energy. Before that, Bush I's emissary told Saddam the US wouldn't meddle in ME affairs if Saddam entered Kuwait.

[babsbunny]

12. Send this to John Kerry, John Conyers!

[proud patriot]

15. Bastard pukes always cheat

lie and steal ...Thay have no honor .

[Griper]

16. Typical...

...talk about spreading democracy around the globe, but stifle it at home.

[Judi Lynn]

17. More on this filthy vote stealing scheme:

James Tobin, of Bangor, Maine, President George W. Bush's New England campaign chairman, was convicted December 15, 2005, on telephone harassment charges "for his part in a plot to jam the Democrats' phones on Election Day 2002." Tobin was acquitted by the federal jury on "the most serious charge against him, of conspiring to violate voters' rights." Tobin will be sentenced March 2006 and "could get up seven years in prison and $500,000 in fines." {1} (http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GOP_PHONE_JAMMING?SITE=JRC&SECTION=POLITICS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-12-15-20-16-27)

As New England campaign chairman for Bush-Cheney '04 Inc., Tobin stepped down two weeks before the election when state Democrats accused him of involvement in a phone-jamming scheme on Election Day 2002. Tobin was later indicted for conspiracy.

Tobin served as national political director for publisher Steve Forbes' Presidential campaign. He is an employee of the Washington, D.C.-based, DCI Group and also has his own consulting firm, Tobin & Co., based in Bangor, Maine. During the 2004 election cycle was a Bush Ranger, raising at least $200,000 for the Bush 2004 reelection effort. {2} (http://www.tpj.org/docs/pioneers/pioneers_view.jsp?id=1065)
(snip)

"Tobin reported to NRSCC executive director Mitch Bainwol and political director Chris LaCivita. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist chaired the NRSCC at the time," The Manchester Union Leader wrote. "Subsequently, Tobin and LaCivita worked together at DCI Group, a Washington GOP lobbying and public relations firm, along with Brian McCabe, a GOP activist who formerly worked in several roles in New Hampshire, including as a campaign manager for former U.S. Rep." Bill Zeliff.{3} (http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=48399)
(snip)

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_Tobin



James TobinUpdated: 12:11 PM EDT
GOP Paying Legal Bills of Bush Official
He's Charged With Conspiring to Keep Democrats From Voting
By JOHN SOLOMON

WASHINGTON (Aug. 11) - Despite a zero-tolerance policy on tampering with voters, the Republican Party has quietly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide private defense lawyers for a former Bush campaign official charged with conspiring to keep Democrats from voting in New Hampshire.

James Tobin, the president's 2004 campaign chairman for New England, is charged in New Hampshire federal court with four felonies accusing him of conspiring with a state GOP official and a GOP consultant in Virginia to jam Democratic and labor union get-out-the-vote phone banks in November 2002.

A telephone firm was paid to make repeated hang-up phone calls to overwhelm the phone banks in New Hampshire and prevent them from getting Democratic voters to the polls on Election Day 2002, prosecutors allege. Republican John Sununu won a close race that day to be New Hampshire's newest senator.

At the time, Tobin was the RNC's New England regional director, before moving to President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign.
(snip)

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050811113209990029

[Julius Civitatus]

18. It spells R-O-V-E

and you know it.

[wordpix2]

27. phone calls were to political office, i.e. Mehlman. They're all the same

anyway.

[file83]

19. It's a "Sabotage!!"

Voter fraudulant MFing fascist.

[Judi Lynn]

22. This would have been taken a lot more seriously had an honest

administration been involved in the prosecution of this case:

Prosecutors did not need the White House calls to convict Tobin and negotiate the two guilty pleas. Whatever the reason for not using the White House records, prosecutors "tried a very narrow case," said Paul Twomey, who represented the Democratic Party in the criminal and civil cases. The Justice Department did not say why the White House records were not used.
(snip)

[DuaneBidoux]

25. Toledo link? Where is the major media on this?

[MsMagnificent]

26. One more thing for them to ignore

Their list is now quite long...

[wordpix2]

29. K&R

[Jaybird]

43. amazing, isn't it.....

some kids slashed the tires on some vans the GOP in wisconsin were using to give rides to voters in 2004 and CNN screamed about it for days, and this doesn't even get mentioned.......hmmmm, kinda makes you wonder about that "damned liberal media"......i'm so sick of these republican fucks getting away with everything.

[Danieljay]

34. Phone Jamming Records point to White House (yahoo_

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060410/ap_on_go_pr_wh/election_phone_jamming

How long is this crap going to continue? It never stops with this corrupt administration.

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 national Republican Party, which paid millions in legal bills to defend Tobin, says the contacts involved routine election business and that it was "preposterous" to suggest the calls involved phone jamming.

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. Other calls from New Hampshire senatorial campaign offices to the White House could have been made by a number of people.

snip

Virtually all the calls to the White House went to the same number, which currently rings inside the political affairs office. In 2002, White House political affairs was led by now-RNC chairman Ken Mehlman. The White House declined to say which staffer was assigned that phone number in 2002.

[madaboutharry]

35. It is really rather remarkable

that this has gone on like a festering wound. I also find it rather astonishing that Tony Blair has hung on to his office.

[lovuian]

36. OMG!!! Unfreakinbelievable!!!

They broke every law imaginable!!!

[Blackhatjack]

37. Of Course if You are McCain, You Hire One of These Guys .....

McCain said he had not heard that his hire was involved in the phone jamming case, but he would look into it. Besides, if the Republican party spent millions to defend these guys, it must be alright --and Jerry Falwell never mentioned it, so how important could it be?

[burrowowl]

38. I suppose

gas prices will get Americans in the street before crimes against democracy and the Constitution do.
Sad, let's see I live 10.6 miles from work, about a 3 hour walk to and ... Be getting a bus pass soon, but ABQ mass transit sucks.

[NorthernSun]

39. Just another federal crime

Another in a long line of impeachable offences. When does the 'rule of law' come come back to Washington DC?

[kestrel91316]

40. Hell, EVERYTHING points back to the WH since * stole it.

[Judi Lynn]

41. Here's some interesting info. on the phone jamming.

There's an UN-welcome mat on the doorstep of NH.
Senator John McCain, who planned to step over that doorstep on April 7, now faces demands that he first fire his new "senior advisor" Terry Nelson. Why? NH Democrats explain:

...Terry Nelson was the National Political Director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2002, where he directly supervised New England Political Director James Tobin. This past December, Tobin was convicted of multiple felonies related to his involvement in the phone-jamming crime.
Not only did Nelson supervise Tobin at the time of the crime, but he then hired him again to work on the Bush-Cheney campaign - even after the RNC was told that Tobin was involved in the criminal phone jamming investigation. In fact, Tobin worked for Nelson again on the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign, from which Tobin was eventually forced to resign because of his mounting legal problems.

Think it's unlikely that McCain will fire Nelson? Josh Marshall's point of view tickled my Funny Ha-Ha bone:

I'm one of those people who always think we should see the opportunities in situation and not just the down side. So, I'd say McCain should keep Nelson on staff and finally help us get the low-down on just how the phone-jamming episode went down. Who at the RNC knew about it? Who at the White House knew about it?
McCain said he would look into Nelson's involvement a few weeks ago. So he must have the whole story.

While he's at it he can ask Nelson about his role in the Tom DeLay money-laundering case too.

This way McCain can be a 'reformer with results' too.
(snip)

Somebody gave James Tobin a green light on this. And the RNC has paid almost three million dollars so far to keep the rest of the country from knowing who did it.
(snip/...)

http://betsydevine.weblogger.com/newsItems/viewDepartment$New%20Hampshire!

[Tight_rope]

42. I hope James Tobin dies in prison so he never comes out and does it again!

[Judi Lynn]

44. Howard Dean's letter to Ken Mehlman concerning the phone-jamming

trail leading to the White House:

April 11, 2006
Ken Mehlman
Chairman
Republican National Committee
310 First Street, SE
Washington DC, 20003

Dear Ken,
Yesterday, the AP ran a story entitled "Phone Jamming Records Point to White House." This story provides new details about the role of the New Hampshire Republican Party in the phone-jamming scandal and raises serious questions as to whether the RNC and the White House were actively involved.

As you know, on Election Day, a telemarketer hired by the New Hampshire GOP jammed telephone lines at five state Democratic and one firefighters union get-out-the-vote phone banks. The AP noted yesterday that 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 AP story also stated that virtually all the calls to the White House went to the same number (202-456-6173) which currently rings inside the political affairs office. Although the White House declined today to say which staffer was assigned that phone number in 2002, you may be able to shed some light on the subject, as you were the White House Political Director during that time.

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?
... more ...

http://www.politicsnh.com/?q=node/193

:woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo: