Ten months in prison–that will lead most people’s stories. (And Jason Szep at Reuters has a good brief report already.)
But the much bigger news, to my mind, is —bail denied. That’s the kind of harsh treatment usually given to dangerous felons.
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What that means is that, no matter how many lawyers get hired to dance appeals on the head of a legal pin, James Tobin goes to prison on June 23. So, if Tobin’s refusal to spill the beans rested on the belief that his RNC-paid lawyers could keep him out of prison indefinitely–that belief should now be officially dead.
This puts his future into Mr. Tobin’s own hands. If he continues to stonewall investigators, he’s off to prison. But if, as his lawyers contend, Mr. Tobin is a wonderful father whose children shouldn’t be deprived of his company, then perhaps he’ll decide that he cares more about his four children than about protecting whatever secrets the RNC has so far spent almost $3 million to keep silent. It’s his decision. |
I spent many hours in NH Federal District Court today, at the sentencing hearing of phone-jamming co-conspiratorJames Tobin. In addition to the Real Reporters (TM) who covered every minute of James Tobin’s trial in December (their stories should be on the Web by tomorrow), reporters and photographers showed up from Reuters, AP, and a bunch more places. A very big thank you to Mike Gehrke, Hilary Sargent, Christy Seltzer, and others at the Senate Majority Project, whose efforts finally got this case the media spotlight its many strange twists deserve!