The U.S. District Court trial of former Republican National Committee regional political director James Tobin is scheduled to begin Tuesday. It’s unclear whether a flurry of pre-trial motions filed by Tobin’s attorney this week will cause a delay.
Tobin is charged with conspiracy in connection with the election day 2002 phone jam scandal. He allegedly put former state party executive director Chuck McGee, the admitted mastermind of the operation, in touch with Virginia-based GOP strategist Allan Raymond, who, in turn, has admitted to arranging to have hang-up calls jam Democratic and union get-out-the-vote phone banks on election morning.
Judge Steven McAuliffe has scheduled a hearing for tomorrow morning on several pre-trial motions that provide insight into some issues that may come up at trial:
- Tobin’s attorneys — funded by the Republican National Committee, not Tobin — are asking the judge to disallow any suggestion that the RNC or its related National Republican Senatorial Committee was involved in paying for the hang-up calls.
- McGee has admitted signing a Republican State Committee check to Raymond to pay for the operation. But the state committee’s financial filings also show contributions from the RNC and NRSC. Tobin’s lawyers say those contributions were unrelated to the phone jam and do not want the jurors be confused about who paid for it.
- Tobin’s lawyers say it appears that the government will elicit testimony from Raymond on campaign finance and election law issues. They say such a move would be improper because Raymond would not be an expert witness.
- Tobin’s lawyers are asking the judge to exclude any evidence that the recipients of the hang-up calls were made to feel “annoyed” or “harassed,” since, they say, it would be an attempt by the government “to fit insufficient evidence into the statutory requirements.”
- The government wants to be sure that Tobin’s attorneys can not cross-examine Raymond on advice Raymond received from his attorney.
Each side recently submitted its witness list. All witnesses are not always called, but the lists in this case have some interesting names.
The government’s list includes:
- Prominent Democrats Buckley, the party vice chair, and state Rep. Jane Clemons of Nashua,
- Former state Republican chairs John Dowd and Jayne Millerick, Concord GOP Chair Jeff Newman, former state GOP finance director Kristy Stuart, former state GOP vice chair Mark Pappas and GOP strategist Chris Wood.
- National GOP strategists Terry Nelson and Chris Lacivita.
Tobin’s list includes some of the above, but also includes:
- Steve Forbes, the 1996 and 2002 presidential candidate who formerly employed Tobin and Raymond,
- Former state GOP legal counsel David Vicinanzo,
- Former national Republican Chairman James Nicholson.
Both lists also include McGee and Raymond, while Tobin is listed as a witness on his own behalf.
John DiStaso is senior political reporter of the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News.
The text above appeared in Di Staso’s column “Granite Status” in the Manchester Union Leader of Dec. 1, 2005.
The text below appeared in an article by DiStaso in the Manchester Union Leader of Dec. 3, 2005, headlined “Attorneys want no talk of RNC in phone trial.”
Attorneys for an accused conspirator in a 2002 Republican phone-jamming scandal want no suggestions made in an upcoming trial that the Republican National Committee or its U.S. Senate campaign affiliate paid for the illegal operation.
The request for special jury instructions to that effect and for deletions on certain documents was made yesterday by the RNC-paid lawyers for former RNC official James Tobin.
The motion appeared to intrigue U.S. District Court Judge Steven J. McAuliffe. In a pre-trial hearing, he pointed out that federal prosecutors have not alleged that the RNC or National Republican Senatorial Committee paid for the operation.
McAuliffe said that undisputed evidence shows a $15,600 check to pay for hundreds of hang-up calls to Democratic and union get-out-the-vote phone banks on election day morning, 2002, was drawn on the New Hampshire Republican State Committee’s war chest.
Andrew Levchuck, the justice department prosecutor, said the RNC and NRSC contributed about $200,000 to the state committee prior to the election, but said he intends to present no evidence suggesting any of it was for the express purpose of funding the phone jam.
McAuliffe wanted to know why, then, Tobin’s attorneys were concerned about it.
“Do you feel there is a need for the jury to know this, or for the public to know?” McAuliffe asked Washington-based attorney Bradley J. Bondi.
The lawyer responded that he and his colleagues never try cases with an eye toward public opinion.
“That’s what this sounds like,” McAuliffe countered from the bench, denying the motion. “Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with this, either, but I’m not going to tell the jury that.”
McAuliffe said that if he told the jurors, “Don’t think for a moment that any of that money came from the RNC,” it would plant the idea in their minds that the RNC may have had something to do with it.
Tobin is scheduled to stand trial beginning Tuesday on charges that he conspired with former state party executive director Charles McGee and GOP political consultant Allen Raymond to deprive Granite Staters of their constitutional right to vote by jamming the phone lines manned by volunteers offering free rides to the polls.
The government says Tobin violated a federal law guaranteeing constitutional voting rights and a separate statute prohibiting telephone harassment.
The government says McGee, who has admitted coming up with the idea, asked Tobin to help him find a vendor to arrange the calls. It says Tobin then put McGee in touch with Raymond.
The government says Tobin also called Raymond, explained the scheme and told him to expect a call from McGee.
Raymond received the $15,600 state Republican Party check and used $2,500 of it to hire an Idaho telemarketing firm, which made about 800 hang-up calls to six telephone numbers on early on election day.
Tobin spent time in New Hampshire during that campaign as both RNC New England political director and Northeast political director of the NRSC. Republican John E. Sununu won a hard-fought Senate victory over Democrat Jeanne Shaheen by nearly 20,000 votes.
McAuliffe yesterday also said he will allow Tobin’s attorney to argue to the jury that Tobin was not part of a conspiracy because McGee and Raymond did not decide to go forward with the phone jam until Raymond received his attorney’s advice on the legality of the operation.
By the time Raymond and McGee went forward, a Tobin attorney said, Tobin was “off the reservation” and had no knowledge of the details of the phone jam.
McAuliffe said he will not allow Tobin’s attorneys to tell the jury what Raymond’s lawyer advised because, the judge said, it was irrelevant to Tobin’s actions.
The advice was that the scheme was legal.
Also yesterday, lawyers for the Republican State Committee and the government settled a key dispute.
The committee agreed to give the government its documents and computer hard drives from its own internal probe of the phone jam as long as they are not made public.
The proposed agreement was submitted to the judge for his review.