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“When the phone-jamming happened in 2002, you should have known right away that Republicans did it!”
I’m paraphrasing here, not someone from the tinfoil-hat crowd, but Republican lawyers, one expensive gray suit after another, demanding that the Democrats’ phone-jamming civil suit be thrown out of court. Er–maybe–but back in 2002, most election dirty tricks were the work of enthusiasts whose official connection was tenuous or non-existent.* |
In two days of hearings on the statute of limitations, Republicans, not Democrats, wanted to find out “what did the other guys know and when did they know it?”
Republicans say the Democrats’ long-postponed suit has run past the statute of limitations because…
- Democrats were remiss by not suspecting {every defendant} when phone lines were jammed on Nov. 5, 2002.
- Democrats were remiss by not suspecting Republican National Committee involvement when they first saw the the GOPMarketplace website in mid-January, 2003, because that website mentions that Allen Raymond had worked for the RNC in the 1990s.
- Democrats were remiss in not doing their own diligent investigation of who was behind the phone-jamming. Communicating with the phone company and the police is not enough. Asking Jayne Millerick (who denied involvement) is not enough. Researching a rumor that turned out to have no foundation is not enough. Multiple letters to the US Attorney and NH Attorney General asking them to investigate…not enough. The burden of proof is on the Democrats to prove that they themselves “diligently” investigated.
- False statements denying knowledge of the phone-jamming may have been made to reporters and the FEC by various NH Republicans–but that doesn’t constitute “fraudulent concealment.”*
I’d still like to transcribe my notes on Kathy Sullivan’s long testimony, which filled in a lot of gaps in the phone-jamming story. Today’s proceedings were also enlivened by another exchange between NH RSC lawyer Ovide Montagne and NH Democrats’ lawyer, which the judge brought to a surprising but very civilly-worded and soft-spoken finish. From my notes:
Judge Mangones: Mr. Lamontagne, I will choose my words carefully. This is not the first time you have engaged in a course of action that has bollixed up the proceedings. [three asterisks] Chuck McGee came here in response to a request from Mr. Williams. You essentially gave him permission to go home. And you did this withough consulting Mr. Williams. In the future, you might want to re-think such behavior.
Attorney Lamontagne: Your honor, if I may…
Judge Mangones: You may not, sir. Sit down, sir.
To clarify, we got a second surprise today. After Finis Williams spent several minutes on the theme that “Chuck McGee told me he would come here today so that he could serve as a witness, but he doesn’t seem to be here…” Ovide Lamontagne finally got up and said that McGee had been there. “But I told him in the hallway that if he hadn’t been subpoenaed, then he didn’t have to stay.” So McGee had simply gone home again.
Readers, bear in mind that I’m transcribing impromptu notes I took on people in fast conversation. I probably don’t have every word exact–but I hope the gist of it survives my transcription. It’s a lot more informative than newspapers will be. For better or worse, today I was the only “reporter.”
* The Democrats allege “fraudulent concealment” against the NH Republican State Committee, but not against John Dowd, its former chair.
* * Obligatory reference to the whispering campaign against John McCain in the presidential primaries of 2000–it wasn’t suspected until long after 2002 that non-fruitcakes would have done something so over-the-top…
[three asterisks] Judge Mangones may have been referring, not to yesterday’s kerfluffle, but to some other episode(s), for example the Republicans’ last-minute failure to produce an expected witness in October, 2004.