Why is the RNC paying to keep NH phone-jamming secrets? A partial timeline
- 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 hasnt 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
- Tobins 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.
Tags: Stories
