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I was there (and “real reporters” were not) in NH Federal District Court on November 16, when 34 year-old Shaun Hansen pled guilty to two felony counts arising from the 2002 NH phone-jamming scandal.
Ten days after the Democrats’ national landslide victory, Bush-appointed US Attorneys in both NH and Idaho pledged not to question Shaun Hansen any further about his role in jamming NH phones on Election Day 2002. |
Hansen’s deal with the feds, and his vague and evasive “factual plea” warrant scrutiny which the press has not given it–so here’s the PDF file.
And here, for eye-opening comparison is Hansen’s list of affirmative defenses.
Just a few smoking guns…
- Guilty plea, page 4: The Department of Justice recommends sentencing leniency based upon the defendants apparent prompt recognition and affirmative acceptance of personal responsibility for the offense.
- Prompt? Hansen jammed phones in November 2002. His “prompt” response to his 2006 indictment was an attempt to get the charges dismissed–or, failing that, to point out the lines of guilt connecting it through the Republican hierarchy all the way to the White House.
- Affirmative defense, page 3: Hansen “had performed services for GOP Marketplace in the past and, based on its name and the type of work the business had been contracted to
perform, he reasonably assumed that GOP Marketplace was a governmental entity or at least that the activities that his business was being asked to perform had been approved in advance by the national Republican party.” - Search Hansen’s guilty plea in vain for any effort by the US Attorney to uncover the story behind these intriguing statement. Heck, search it in vain for the word “Republican”!
- Affirmative defense, page 2: If the case comes to trial, Hansen “will present evidence that he and his business partner, Lee Leblanc, were parties to a conference call in which Messrs. Raymond and Cupit and an unknown ‘attorney’ provided further assurances that the acts which they and their business were contracted to perform in November 2002 were completely legal.”
- Search Hansen’s guilty plea in vain for any information about this intriguing phone call, or for any clear details about dates or people involved. Guilty plea, page 10: “In or about late October or early November of 2002, a coconspirator telephoned Hansen to discuss a project.” That’s the level of detail of Shaun Hansen’s confession.
What this plea bargain looks like to me is a last-ditch attempt to close down the phone-jamming inquiry before Democrats get to ask Attorney General Alberto Gonzales about his six-months-and-counting non-response to their request for a special prosecutor.
NB. DOJ Attorney Andrew Levchuk, who headed the prosecutorial team against both Hansen and James Tobin, deserves kudos for hard work under adverse conditions. But Levchuk’s boss here is the US Attorney for the State of NH, Bush appointee Thomas Colantuono, whose many ties to the people being investigated and even to the lawyers defending those people in the Democrats’ civil suit have raised many eyebrows over his role in this case.