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

The hypothetical deal James Tobin could still make to spill the beans in exchange for a lighter sentence shouldn’t be called a plea bargain.

During the trial, his lawyers were very cocky and I think they persuaded him that the jury would find him not guilty–no reason, they probably told him, to think of a plea bargain.

The lawyers’ current strategy to keep Tobin from flipping is appealing his conviction. I don’t think that appeal will succeed in anything except tying Tobin up in courts for the next few years. I’ll be curious to see which of the many ludicrous objections they threw at the judge they actually try to use.

BTW, Judge Steve McAuliffe was appointed to the federal bench by Bush Senior in 1992, six years after the death of his wife Christa McAuliffe in the Challenger disaster. Interestingly, another of the NH Bush Senior appointees, Judge DiClerico, recently made headlines and infuriated the current Bushies by declaring the NH parental notification law unconstitutional.

If Tobin were smart enough to realize that his RNC-paid attorneys are working for the RNC and not for him, he would run, not walk, to the prosecutor’s office and cut a deal tomorrow. Then the prosecutor would ask the judge to go easy on sentencing, and I think the judge would comply if Tobin has anything useful to spill.

(Sentencing is March 21, IIRC.)

The Tom DeLay scoop in today’s LA Times suggests that Tom DeLay could exorcise scary threats from the Federal Government:

“Delay and two others helped put the brakes on a federal probe of a businessman…The effort to help Hurwitz began in 1999 when DeLay wrote a letter to the chairman of the FDIC denouncing the investigation of Hurwitz as a “form of harassment and deceit on the part of government employees.” When the FDIC persisted, Doolittle and Pombo — both considered proteges of DeLay — …inserted many of the sensitive documents into the Congressional Record, making them public and accessible to Hurwitz’s lawyers, a move that FDIC officials said damaged the government’s ability to pursue the banker.

So, if you were wondering why James Tobin, when Justice Department lawyers were closing in, in June of 2004, might be advised to send a fast $2,000 to Tom DeLay…

And the only thing that finally ended the stonewalling, that finally brought James Tobin’s name out of the Justice Department’s top-secret super-duper double-good-old-boys background and into the public eye, was a lawsuit the frustrated NH Democrats finally filed on October 14, 2004.

But, as Josh Marshall points out today, NH Republicans just filed a countersuit, claiming that the Democrats had no reason at all to sue them, none whatsoever, except to interfere with the GOP’s “constitutionally protected election activities.”

I don’t know about you, but I find this whole thing pretty spooky.

$3,000 per year in political donations–that was all James Tobin and his wife Ellen gave in 2002, and again in 2003, according to official FEC records.

So $2,000 in a single day is a large donation. But that’s how much Tobin gave to Texas Congressman Tom DeLay on June 30, 2004.

June 30, 2004 was also the day that Allen Raymond turned state’s evidence in the NH phone-jamming scandal.

June 30, 2004 was also the day that Federal Prosecutor Todd Hinnen first gave public details of the role played by an unnamed “official in a national political organization.” That unnamed official was, we now know, James Tobin.

Tom DeLay was not the only person to profit from a huge surge in Tobin’s donations* during 2004. Aside from $3,000 to Maine Republican candidates and that $2,000 to DeLay, Tobin made some quite interesting donations:

• $1,000* to Nevada Senator John Eric Ensign (who also got money both from Tom Delay’s ARMPAC and from Abramoff associate David Safavian)
• $500 to Senator Bob Beauprez (who got another $30,000 from DeLay’s ARMPAC.)
• $500 to Missouri Senator Kit Bond (who also got $12,500 from Abramoff)
• $500 to Texas Congressman Ted Poe (who also got $5,000 from Tom DeLay’s ARMPAC).
• $500 to Sandhills PAC, the PAC of Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel (who ran into ethics problems over undisclosed ties to the voting machines that gave him a landslide victory.)
• $1,000 to Iowa Priorities, the PAC of Iowa Senator Jim Nussle (Nussle himself got $15,020 fromTom Delay’s ARMPAC)

So, if you were wondering why the RNC shoulders the public embarrassment of paying Tobin’s legal bills, maybe his ties to the dark side of the party have the potential to embarrass them even more.

* In addition to his own donations, James Tobin was also busy in 2004 “bundling” $200,000 in other people’s contributions to Bush-Cheney 2004.

* * Tobin gave Ensign two $500 donations, the first giving his Maine address and describing him as self-employed, the other 20 days later giving a DC address and calling him an employee of DCI Group, LLC.

Badabing! The lowdown (and I do mean low) on Allen Raymond’s other 2002 telemarketing scandal–in New Jersey.

During the NH Phone-jamming trial of James Tobin, US attorneys tried to grill Raymond about those 2002 Superbowl phone antics. Defense attorneys blocked that testimony–I’ve backpaged the official court transcript that shows it happening.

p.s. Thanks to Josh Marshall for recruiting the clearly-very-capable Paul Kiel.

On some chilly and rainy NH election day back in 1960-something, my father invited me to tag along to a “boiler room” in downtown Manchester. Oh boy! I would have tagged along just about anywhere for the chance to spend some extra time with my dad. Dad’s “boiler room” turned out to have no actual boilers but lots of busy grown-ups and loud-ringing phones. They were getting out the vote, my dad explained, it was very important. People with no cars could call up the “boiler room” for a ride to the polls.

I was “helping” by passing out paper cups of weak coffee when a man with gray hair beckoned me over. “Little girl, do you see this dime? Do you know whose picture is on it?” He had such a heavy French-Canadian accent that he wasn’t very easy to understand.

I looked closely at the dime. “It’s Roosevelt, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he almost shouted. “It’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And do you know why I come here, every year?”

“No, sir,” I said, wishing that my father would rescue me.

“Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that’s why I come every year. Because back when the mills closed, when I lost my job and I couldn’t find a new one. When my family was hungry–my children were hungry. Franklin Delano Roosevelt turned things around. And that’s why I come here, and I’ll come here every year. Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”

The memory ends there, just when I’d stopped wanting to be rescued and started wanting to remember every word. But, over the years, I’ve often thought of that man and his busy, jangling boiler-room .

So, if you have wondered why I should care so much about the NH phone-jamming scandal, when some Republican wiseguys tried to disrupt the Democrats’ get-out-the-vote effort with multiple hangup phone calls… Maybe I care because my dad would have cared. And maybe I care because of that old man with his Roosevelt dime.

Here’s what some New England voices are saying about Maine-resident James Tobin, after his conviction by a Concord, NH federal jury:

Tobin deserves severe punishment for phone jamming…In the end, Tobin’s deceit and brazen efforts to influence the outcome of an election would make him a criminal who, like the others involved in the phone-jamming plot, deserves to pay a steep price.

Maine Morning Sentinel

Any effort to rig an election or to thwart voter turnout, no matter how incompetent or unsuccessful, is an assault on democracy…Tobin had the power to make the phone-jamming possible. Only he knew instantly where a Republican operative could go to get such dirty deeds done. He also had the power to prevent the crime. Instead, he abetted it.

Concord (NH) Monitor editorial titled “Jail time appropriate for election tampering”

Elections should be decided on the merits of the ideas and candidates the parties put forward, not on which side can hatch the more devious plot to hamper the other’s effort. Serious punishment for those involved in this type of nonsense lets perpetrators know that voters have little tolerance for their schemes.

Daily News of Newburyport (MA)

He could get a seven-year term when he is sentenced in March. There could also be a fine, but maybe the Republican National Committee will pick that up; it has already spent about a million dollars on Tobin’s defense. For whatever reason, the jury acquitted Tobin of a charge that he had conspired against voters’ rights. But McGee, Raymond and Tobin certainly conspired to disrupt the electoral process that day, and for a while they succeeded.

Keene (NH) Sentinel

Tobin’s neighbors may agree he was guilty as charged, but if he just keeps quiet, he can probably look forward to many years of paid political activism for some wing group or other* of the GOP.

* After being outed for his role in the phone jamming, Tobin’s co-conspirator Chuck McGee quickly found a new job as NH Executive Director for the conservative think tank Citizens for a Sound Economy. Since returning from 7 months in federal prison, McGee has been employed by “a national, full-service GOP direct mail firm.” James Tobin can probably look forward to similar jobs if he stays in the good graces of the RNC.

From Kevin Wack’s story in the December 28 Portland (ME) Press Herald:

James Tobin, the Republican political operative from Maine who was convicted last month of plotting to jam Democrats’ phone lines, is seeking a new trial. Tobin, once a rising star in the GOP, also wants a federal judge to overturn the jury’s guilty verdict…The documents filed in U.S. District Court in Concord, N.H., do not include an argument for why the jury’s guilty verdict should be vacated or why Tobin should be granted a new trial.

Before and during the trial, defense lawyers came up with a laundry list of legalistic complaints, including 44 objections in the time it took Judge Steven McAuliffe to read 39 pages of jury instructions. So it’s hard to guess which claim will serve as the basis for this appeal.

James Tobin was found guilty in the NH phone-jamming case on two different counts related to harassing phone calls.

His defense attorneys worked hard to convince the judge* that “harassing” phone calls must be intended “to instill fear”–therefore multiple hangup calls to the Democrats were not “harassing.”

What James Tobin okayed, and his co-conspirators carried out, were not crank calls or threatening calls but a massive denial of service (DOS) attack on the Democrats’ phones on Election Day. The possibility of such an attack was, in 2002, something brand-new. Telemarketing technology could be re-purposed to strike down your political opponents’ communications, in a close race, on Election Day, all day long.

And, AFAIK, such a strategy isn’t illegal, in 2005, so long as you do it without getting tripped up by laws that were set up to outlaw quite different behavior.* * In 2005, such activity would be much easier. Just one tech-savvy Skyper could automate his own barrage of calls to tie up the Democrats’ (or Republicans’) phones on Election Day.

Against your Constitutional right to a free and fair election? Absolutely–but is it against the law?

In the recent Bush-wiretapping scandal, new technology made it so easy and so tempting to step around the Constitution.

The breath-taking reach and possibilities of using telephone denial-of-service against political opponents must surely have made a real impression on James Tobin in 2002. I hope Federal prosecutors will press on to discover just how high up the political foodchain he carried this news. And I hope Federal legislators will make sure that such attacks are, as they should be, completely illegal.

* Argument stated several times in “Amended and Supplemental Proposed Jury Instructions of James Tobin” (CR. 04-216-01-SM)–for example, on page 57, “Proposed Jury Instruction No. 35.”

* * The US Department of Justice Cybercrime Unit helpfully posts online a number of exploits now possible but not covered by current laws. Their plea for improved federal oversight of cybercrime was made on March 5, 2000, in the last days of the Clinton administration. More recent postings, however, show a new DOJ focus on “piracy” and praise for the Patriot Act (surely our tax dollars shouldn’t be spent to influence legislation.)

Here’s the trial story, well-told by real reporter Eric Moskowitz in the Concord Monitor:

• Trial starts: opening statements and Charles McGee (December 6)
• McGee and Allen Raymond testify(December 7)
• Surprise defense witness, and testimony wraps (December 8)
• Last pitches by US Attorney and Tobin’s defense team (December 12)
• Juror hospitalized after day of deliberation on Tobin trial (December 14)
• Verdict: Tobin guilty on two counts (December 15)

Now, for contrast, here’s the same trial through the eyes of a blogger:

• Up at 6 a.m. to drive to NH (December 6)
• US Attorney’s opening statement (December 6)
• Digression on “Tobin’s” lawyers (December 6)
• Defense attorney’s opening statement (December 6)
• Chuck McGee, now out of prison… (December 6)
• What is the James Tobin story-behind-the-story? (December 7)
• Telegraph-ese on Tobin (December 8)
• Hanging out with real journalists (December 13)
• Ordeal by numbers: 44 objections? (December 13)
• Jury room may be tense, but the corridor’s calm (December 14)
• Sauce for one witness should be sauce for the other… (December 14)
• Tobin guilty on two counts, his lawyer glum and mum (December 15)
• AP reporter: “What happened? What happened?” (December 15)
• Real reporters have checked in on the Tobin verdict (December 15)
• Why do bird counts count for more than election sabotage? (December 20)

A few more information links to deep background:

• SourceWatch article on James Tobin
• James Tobin’s role in phone-jamming becomes public and he quits Bush campaign (October 15, 2004)
• Tobin indicted (May 18, 2005)
• RNC admits paying Tobin’s legal bills (August 11)

Frank Paynter gets it:

“Man bites dog” in New England is still the stuff of breathless national coverage, always will be. Stories about dead wives in California also seem to merit wide coverage. But “Republicans convicted of election fraud” will always be local news. If it was spread wider, the people would be informed about the bigger picture.

So that’s why national media didn’t cover James Tobin’s trial while regional media did one heckuva job. Even though James Tobin was a top honcho in the

• National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee when he stepped in to corrupt the 2002
• Federal election, even though Tobin is or was employed by the top
• national-level Republican lobbying and PR group, even though Tobin went on from this 2002 event to become a top honcho (and a top donor) in the
• national 2004 Presidential campaign. And the Republican
• National Committee is paying Tobin’s legal bills.

Who remembers the expression, “Don’t make a federal case out of it”? As if, in those innocent days, a “federal case” was something that would get a lot of attention.

Neither Scott Peterson nor Michael Jackson threatened the basis of our democracy–the citizen’s right to vote in a fair election. I still can’t believe that what Tobin did–promoting a brand-new way to keep voters from voting–just didn’t matter to mainstream media.

Big thanks to Dave Winer, for linking to my outrage almost as soon as I posted it, and to other outraged bloggers OnePotMeal, Salon-blogger “A Blog Doesn’t Need a Clever Name,” KBCafe’s Bad Politics, for pushing this story.

Breaking: The Toledo Blade sees this as part of a national story.