Do you know what Bush really doesn’t need right now? Another criminal scandal that reaches the White House. I guess, therefore, that this story is really unwelcome news.
Key figures in a phone-jamming scheme designed to keep New Hampshire Democrats from voting in 2002 had regular contact with the White House and Republican Party as the plan was unfolding, phone records introduced in criminal court show.
The records show that Bush campaign operative James Tobin, who recently was convicted in the case, made two dozen calls to the White House within a three-day period around Election Day 2002 — as the phone jamming operation was finalized, carried out and then abruptly shut down.
Tobin, Bush’s presidential campaign chairman for the New England region in 2004, orchestrated a scheme to jam telephone lines at a Democratic get-out-the-vote center during New Hampshire’s closely-contested Senate race in 2002.
On Election Day, while Tobin was criminally interfering with the election process, he called the Bush White House 12 times.
The RNC — which, not incidentally, has paid Tobin’s legal bills, despite his scandalous crime — said the calls were “routine election business.” One of Tobin’s associates made a 17-minute call to the White House as voters headed to the polls, but when asked what she discussed, said she did not recall the subject.
Surely, given the seriousness of the issue, the White House will want to offer an explanation right? Well, not so much.
“As policy, we don’t discuss ongoing legal proceedings within the courts,” White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said.
It’s funny how often these guys get to use this line, isn’t it?
To date, the Justice Department has secured three convictions in the case. Democrats are pursuing a civil case against the state GOP and will ask a federal judge today “to order GOP and White House officials to answer questions about the phone jamming in a civil lawsuit alleging voter fraud.” Stay tuned.