shanannaghans.......thanks Sue
Calling Ken
by kos
Fri Mar 24, 2006 at 07:06:55 AM PDT
Well, look who was working with convicted political dirty trickster James Tobin in New Hampshire:
In the days before and after the state Republican Party's 2002 Election Day phone-jamming scheme, the man who now chairs the Republican National Committee was the White House director of political affairs.
And a Democratic-affiliated advocacy group says that court records show Ken Mehlman's office received more than 75 telephone calls from now-convicted phone-jam conspirator James Tobin from Sept. 30 to Nov. 22 of that year.
The Senate Majority Project, a brainchild "527" of former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, wonders why Tobin called the White House so often. Tobin at the time worked for the Republican National Committee and the affiliated National Republican Senatorial Committee -- and a hot race that year was the New Hampshire Senate contest between Republican John Sununu and Democrat Jeanne Shaheen.
On election morning, a telemarketer hired by the state GOP jammed the telephones of five state Democratic and one firefighters union get-out-the-vote phone banks [...]
"All we have is the phone number and the fact that calls were made to the White House," says SMP executive director Mike Gehrke, a former high-level Clinton administration staffer. "But we also know from the court record that a lot of other calls about the scheme were going on. For a period of time, this was the hot topic.
"With that many calls, I believe it's inconceivable that there wasn't some knowledge of this at the White House," Gehrke said. "At the very least, it is evidence that there needs to be a bigger net cast here before the end of this case."
As a bonus to this story, guess who Tobin's boss was at the time? Terry Nelson, the ethically compromised DeLay lieutenant hired by opportunist John McCain.
REMINDER: WILLIAMS & CONNOLLY represents this Tobin guy and the RNC has spent wll over $2 million in legal fees to defend him. Wonder why????