Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

One year ago, I was back in the 16th century, blogging “How Descartes made me stop being late for morning assembly.“

In 2004, I blogged my ex-Christian praise of Good Friday…No, I’m just not ex-Christian enough not to notice the day.

On a much more joyful springtime note, go listen to Dave Winer’s round-about-a-year-ago podcast of himself singing “It’s a Small World After All.” Then, as Dave said then (and I agree), “appreciate the philosophy.”

Contrary to the RNC’s claim that “Jim Tobin told us he was innocent”, his lawyers fought a narrow and legalistic battle about the exact meaning of the statutes in question.

• They argued at length that the phone calls would only be harassing if they were intended to frighten people.
• They argued that Tobin didn’t know the phones would be jammed by repeated phone calls, he might have thought they’d be jammed by some other method.
• They argued that Tobin didn’t know that the phones to be jammed were get out the vote lines, he might have thought it was a plan to interfere with other Democratic GOTV stuff.
• They told the jury that knowledge a crime is going to be committed does not constitute conspiracy.
• They told the jury the state had not proved that James Tobin made a direct call to Allen Raymond about Chuck McGee and his plan–even though the clear language of their appeal makes it clear they knew exactly that did happen.

Thanks to the NH State Legislature for clearing up that little matter for people who are so ethically challenged that they don’t understand that what Tobin and his cronies did on Election Day 2002 was wrong.

Interestingly, the vote was unanimous. Not one legislator was confused or uncertain about whether such behavior was basically OK. Too bad James Tobin and his RNC backers still don’t agree.

Thanks, David! Will political reporter Rick Klein of the Boston Globe break this story open, as Woodward and Bernstein did Watergate?

The Democrats filed their lawsuit in 2004. Since then, they have repeatedly tried to push forward with it, only to be stalled and stymied by the US Department of Justice, which claimed that letting the Democrats’ suit go forward would harm their own prosecution of wrongdoers.*

Moving at the pace of a snail with bunions, the US DOJ did not indict co-conspirator James Tobin until December of 2004, and did not bring his case to trial until December of 2005. If the Democrats’ lawsuit is only now unfolding in 2006, this is not due to any skullduggery by the Democrats.

“Somebody made a decision to try to assist the Republican Party in stonewalling us,” said Democratic Party Chairman Kathleen N. Sullivan.

She said it was “shocking” that the justice department would “interfere in this small New Hampshire case” when federal prosecutors haven’t stopped discovery in civil cases against Enron, Tyco and WorldCom while parallel criminal cases are under way.

“We find this late intervention by the Department of Justice to be a sorry and sad reflection upon that department,” said Steven M. Gordon, attorney for the Democratic Party.

“How did he know that?” How did RNC lawyer Robert Kelner have access to secret backstage information from the US Attorneys who prosecuted James Tobin? John DiStaso is so far the only one with this story:

Robert Kelner, an RNC lawyer in the phone-jamming civil suit, added an interesting twist after Tuesday’s superior court hearing.

Kelner told WMUR that the federal Justice Department has long known about the calls to the White House, investigated the calls and “did not bring any charges.”

“How did he know that?” [NH Democratic leader Kathy] Sullivan asked.

The Justice Department has never commented publicly about its investigation. A White House spokesman said this week, “As policy, we don’t discuss ongoing legal proceedings within the courts.”

“So, is the White House or the Department of Justice willing to speak to Mr. Kelner and no one else?” Sullivan asked. “I don’t know how else he would know that.”

Picture this: US Attorneys in Concord, NH put pressure on an employer who was footing huge legal bills for an ex-employee. Such payments, pointed out the US attorney, are clear evidence that the ex-employer has something to hide. Less than two weeks ago, the WSJ wrote up this story. (March 28, 2006 WSJ, “U.S. Pressures Firms Not to Pay Staff Legal Fees”). Sadly, the case in point wasn’t the NH phone-jamming. The Republican National Committee continues to pay the legal bills for convicted felon James Tobin–up to at least $2.3 million so far. But the US Attorneys prosecuting Tobin ignored the clear implication that his million-dollar DC-lawyer defense team was protecting much bigger fish than Mr. Tobin. To quote Josh Marshall, “..the fact that the RNC is paying Tobin’s legal bills means either that he was acting under authorization or, frankly, that they’re trying to keep him quiet. There’s really no other reasonable explanation of this.”

The fee-payment issue has gained prominence in recent years, following a 2003 U.S. Justice Department memo that advised prosecutors to credit companies that cooperate with the government in an effort to avoid indictment. The memo, written by former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, advises that a company’s willingness to advance legal fees to “culpable employees” may signal a lack of cooperation…

The Corporate Counsel blog has more on the subject:

“If you are convicted of crime and it damaged the company, the company shouldn’t pay your legal expenses,” says Charles Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware….

The SEC lately has taken a harder line on companies paying employee legal fees. Last May, it fined Lucent Technologies $25 million for not cooperating in an investigation, partly citing the company’s legal-fee payments for employees. Lucent didn’t admit or deny wrongdoing.

In a recent speech, the SEC’s outgoing enforcement chief Stephen Cutler .. said paying employees’ legal fees insulates them from the consequences of wrongdoing. “If an individual can look to his/her employer to pay the freight,” said Mr. Cutler, “what good have we done?”

If still-stonewalling Ken Mehlman and Karl Rove want to promote clean elections, they should reconsider the message they’re sending their troops by footing James Tobin’s legal bills.

TPM Muckraker Paul Kiel has a scoop:

The AP, in their story on calls to the White House, noted one call in particular, a 17 minute call from Jayne Millerick, then a GOP strategist working on the 2002 election. This was with the same number at the White House’s Office of Political Affairs that James Tobin called so frequently.

The AP simply noted the call, and reported Millerick as saying that she “did not recall the subject” and that she hadn’t learned of the plot until after the election.

But details from the phone records analyized by the Senate Majority Project suggest that Millerick was fully aware of the plot to jam the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s phone lines..Millerick made a run of calls on the day of the jamming that suggest that she was looking for legal advice.

This blog’s readers may recall Jayne Millerick’s protestations, back when the phone-jamming scandal hit the newspapers, of surprise and innocence. She wanted to talk instead about a new code of ethics she and her GOP friends were all going to sign. Search this news story archive for her name, and watch her story mutate over time.

Go, TPM Muckraker, go!

Federal Election campaign, 2002

Chuck McGee, Executive Director of the New Hampshire Republican party, gets a flyer in the mail from NH Democrats with phone numbers to call if you want a ride to the polls. McGee gets the idea to “disrupt enemy communications” by jamming these numbers. He approaches several telemarketers, all of whom refuse to help him, and is stymied until James Tobin offers to help him. James Tobin is the New England regional head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

10/18/2002

James Tobin makes a two-minute phone call to Allen Raymond. (Raymond testified that Tobin had phoned him to tell him to expect a phone call from McGee. Defense witness Kathleen Summers testified that Tobin had a different reason to call.)

10/23/2002

Tobin’s expense account shows a payment of $39.16 with the names Chuck McGee, Darrell Henry, and Chairman Dowd (head of NH State Republican Party)

10/28/2002

Abramoff clients Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians (California) gives $5,000 to NH Republican State Committee.
http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00136457/95264/sa/ALL

10/28/2002

Abramoff clients Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians gives $5,000 to NH Republican State Committee.

11/1/2002

Tom DeLays’s ARMPAC gives $5,000 to NH Republican State Committee.

11/4/2002

McGee sends $15,600 check from NH Republican State Committee check to pay for phone-jamming. He also sends Raymond an email with the 6 phone numbers to jam.

11/5/2002

Election day phone-jamming plan unravels, as Manchester Police and NH Republican John Dodds bring it to a halt. James Tobin makes two dozen phone calls to the White House office of public affairs between 11/4 and 2:17 a.m. on 11/7.

mid-November, 2002

Manchester, NH police contact Allen Raymond’s company; Raymond phones Tobin; Tobin at first pretends not to know what he’s talking about (Allen Raymond’s testimony)

2/7/2003

Federal investigators have been called in by Manchester, NH police. Manchester Union Leader breaks the phone-jamming story, and Chuck McGee resigns as Executive Director of the New Hampshire Republican party.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2003_02_02.php#000625

2/20/2003

According to the Feb. 20 Union Leader, the GOP Marketplace attorney said “the firm hasn’t heard from federal or state investigators, either.”
http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_show.html?article=18369

December, 2003

FBI agent first interviews Chuck McGee to ask him about his role in the phone-jamming. (Chuck McGee’s testimony)

2/17/2004

James Tobin donation to Ted Poe (Texas) $1,000

3/30/2004

James Tobin donation to John Eric Ensign (NV) (giving Tobin’s Maine address) $500

6/9/2004

James Tobin donation to John Eric Ensign (NV) (giving Tobin’s DC address) $500

6/24/2004

James Tobin donation to Bob Beauprez (CO) $500

6/30/2004

Allen Raymond pleads guilty, admitting he took $15,600 from the NH Republican Committee to pay for a phone bank to make repeated hang-up calls to NH Democrats and Manchester firefighters, blocking their get-out-the-vote effort on Election Day 2002.

6/30/2004

Prosecutor Todd Hinnen tells the court that had Raymond chosen to go to trial, the government would have been able to prove that “in late October 2002, the defendant, Allen Raymond, then the president of Virginia-based political consulting company GOP Marketplace, LLC, received a call from a former colleague who was then an official in a national political organization. The official indicated that he had been approached by an employee of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee with an idea that might give New Hampshire Republican candidates an edge over New Hampshire democratic (sic) candidates in the upcoming election.”

6/30/2004

James Tobin donation to Tom Delay (TX) $2000 (More on Tobin’s donations to friends of DeLay and Abramoff.

7/1/2004

Union Leader story discloses that Raymond worked with “co-conspirators known to the government,” but does not identify them.

Early July, 2004

Chuck McGee arraigned for his role in phone-jamming.

7/10/2004

James Tobin donation to Kit Bond (MO) $500

7/13/2004

NH State Democratic Party files suit against the Republican State Committee and its former executive director over the jamming of six phone banks on Election Day 2002.

7/28/2004

Chuck McGee pleads guilty in Federal Court.

8/26/2004

James Tobin donation to Sandhills PAC (Chuck Hagel) $500

9/3/2004

James Tobin donation to Iowa Priorities PAC (Jim Nussle) $500

Early October, 2004

NH Democrats sue both McGee and Raymond, filing a motion that describes but does not name James Tobin as the unidentified co-conspirator whose identity has been concealed by the Justice Department.

10/11/2004

Josh Marshall’s TalkingPointsMemo reveals the name of James Tobin, based on information in the Democrats’ lawsuit.

10/14, 2004

The Manchester Union Leader becomes the first mainstream media outlet to name James Tobin in connection with the phone-jamming scandal.

10/15/2004

James Tobin resigns as Bush-Cheney New England campaign chair. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/003694.php

12/1/2004

James Tobin is indicted by Federal grand jury on four counts related to the get-out-the-vote phone-jamming. The indictment describes Tobin as the go-between who put McGee and Raymond in touch with each other. Tobin pleads innocent to the charges.

12/9/2004

According to RNC financial disclosures, the Republican National Committee paid the high-powered Washington law firm Williams and Connolly $162,646 on Dec. 9, 2004, eight days after a grand jury charged that Tobin had aided former state GOP executive director Charles McGee in setting up an operation to jam voter-turnout telephone banks at Democratic and labor union offices throughout the state. http://www.democrats.org/a/2005/08/whos_dopey_geor.php?comments=1

5/18/2005

Superseding indictment of James Tobin alleges 4 counts: Conpiracy 1) against voters’ rights and 2) to make phone calls violating federal law, and Aiding and abetting 3) anonymous harassing phone calls and 4) repeated harassing phone calls. http://wid.ap.org/documents/tobinindictment.pdf

8/13/2005

Union Leader breaks story that RNC is paying Tobin’s legal bills.

August, 2005

Federal Prosecutor Todd Hinnen pulled off the phone-jamming case, replaced by a brand-new prosecutor. (Tobin’s defense continues to be handled by partner-level staff from top DC white-collar-crime group Williams and Connelly.)

12/6/2005

James Tobin’s trial begins, in front of an audience that includes a few local reporters, many well-dressed young lawyers taking notes, and one dogged blogger. (Chronological account of Tobin’s trial)

12/15/2005

James Tobin convicted on two counts (Conspiracy, and Aiding and abetting related to phone calls); acquitted on conspiracy against rights.

12/15/2005

Tobin’s lawyers get another $1,771,360.21 from the RNC

12/21/2005

Tobin’s lawyers file notice of their intent to appeal his conviction.

3/27/06

Fourth indictment in NH phone-jamming case–Sean Hanson, the Idaho telemarketer whose company made the hang-up phone calls.

04/08/2006

Karl Rove thanks GOP lawyers for “clean elections.”

04/12/2006

NH State Legislature votes unanimously to make phone-jamming a felony.

I’ve been at work on a timeline of the NH phone-jamming scandal, trying to “follow the money” that flowed to and from friends of DeLay and Abramoff, as well as the ongoing payments from the RNC to defense lawyers for convicted felon James Tobin.

Here are a few highlights, but I’ll be backpaging the ongoing timeline work:

10/28/2002

NH Republican State Committee gets $10,000 from Abramoff clients.
http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00136457/95264/sa/ALL

11/1/2002

NH Republican State Committee gets $5,000 from Tom DeLays’s ARMPAC.

11/4/2002

McGee signs a $15,600 NH Republican State Committee check to pay for phone-jamming.

11/5/2002

Election day phone-jamming plan unravels, and James Tobin makes two dozen phone calls to the White House office of public affairs between 11/4 and 2:17 a.m. on 11/7…

6/30/2004

Prosecutor Todd Hinnen discloses the involvement in phone-jamming of Allen Raymond’s “former colleague who was then an official in a national political organization.”

6/30/2004

James Tobin donation to Tom Delay (TX) $2,000 (More on Tobin’s donations to friends of DeLay and Abramoff.) …

10/14/2004

Democrats file motion that for the first time names James Tobin as the unidentified co-conspirator and alleges that the Justice Department is conspiring with NH State Republicans to keep his name from being disclosed. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/phone.jamming.motion.10.14.pdf

10/15/2004

James Tobin resigns as Bush-Cheney New England campaign chair. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/003694.php

12/9/2004

Eight days after James Tobin’s indictment, the RNC starts paying lawyers to defend him. http://www.democrats.org/a/2005/08/whos_dopey_geor.php?comments=1

8/13/2005

Eight months later, Union Leader breaks story that RNC is paying Tobin’s legal bills.

12/15/2005

NH jury finds James Tobin guilty of conspiracy in the phone-jamming; his lawyers get more money from the RNC and start appealing within a week.

04/08/2006

Karl Rove thanks GOP lawyers for “clean elections.”

From AP’s Washington office:

…Bush campaign operative James Tobin, who recently was convicted in the [NH phone-jamming] 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.

Such details came to light only because the NH Democrats have filed civil charges, finally bypassing a snail-slow prosecution by the US Attorney’s office that the AP story kindly calls “narrow.” Just a few examples of things the Feds let slide as the case progressed:

• Federal prosecutors were very slow to start gathering evidence.
• Federal prosecutors failed to tape their interviews with suspect Allen Raymond, enabling Tobin’s defense lawyer to claim that evidence against his client had flourished and grown “like Pinocchio’s nose.”
• The Justice Department replaced prosecutor Todd Hinnen in August, 2005, handing the Tobin prosecution to US Attorney Andrew Levchuk, who was also handling ongoing responsibility for several other cases. By comparison, Tobin’s defense was handled by partner-level staff from two major law firms.
• The US Attorney never introduced evidence at Tobin’s trial about the suspicious timing of Tobin’s contributions to Tom DeLay (among many others) or the fact that Tobin’s legal bills were being paid by the RNC–strong evidence that James Tobin had something to hide.
• The US Attorney let Tobin’s defense make the case that Tobin had no way of knowing that the planned phone-jamming would affect rides to the polls, despite Chuck McGee’s clear testimony that this was his plan from the start. As a result, the jury acquitted Tobin of “depriving citizens of their right to vote.”

April 11 update from the Union Leader.

Update #2: Howard Dean’s on the case.

Update #3: The Senate Majority Project is hosting pdfs of the phone evidence and sworn affadavit that set this story in motion.

For my bloggiversary, just a little late–not quite a top ten, but some good stuff from a very straaaaaange 2005.

If what you really like is the Funny Ha-Ha:

• Pre-mocking this year’s Oscars
• Randomly generate poetry based on your blog
• Volkswagen Beetles, and Robby, by a nose
• Maple syrup miracle (with shiny graphic of miracle Kokopelli)
• “I pledge allegiance to the fish”?

Here are the OpEd pieces you liked the most:

• Happiness is a Dutch bicycle
• Hallelujah for modern music, including Handel’s (with a graphic of multiply-pierced Mr. Handel)
• Word from a lover (and hater) of science museums
• Chuck McGee, now out of prison…
• AP reporter:”What happened? What happened?”

Traveler’s tales–and this year I traveled a lot!

• Soft watches and traveling Saturdays (Barcelona)
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Frank Wilczek, and Iker Casillas (Madrid)
• Galactic strawberries and DMZ birding (Lindau)
• Deciphering the technology of Mozart (Vienna)
• Home home home home home (Home!)

Finally, some personal thoughts I’m glad I wrote down here:

• Dried marjoram from her grandmother’s garden
• Geek celebration: Our billion-second-iversary
• Portrait of a 1918 blogger
• Father’s Day and loving men, just in general
• Christmas landscape with berries, birds, and blogfriends