ASSOCIATED PRESS
A former Republican consultant who served three months in prison for his role in the Election Day 2002 phone-jamming operation against New Hampshire Democrats says he knows of no connection between the White House and the ploy.
“I cannot link the New Hampshire phone-jamming scheme in any way to President George Bush’s White House,” Allen Raymond told a House panel probing the jamming operation yesterday.
But Mr. Raymond said his training at the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee showed him that “unusual programs never saw the light of day without a thorough vetting by committee attorneys.”
Mr. Raymond has written a book about his experiences called “How to Rig an Election.” He said he hopes his testimony will shed light on “the worst practices by bad actors” in politics and prevent future attempts to taint elections.
Rep. Paul W. Hodes, New Hampshire Democrat, urged the panel to focus on key “unanswered questions” about whether the White House played a role in the plot, and whether the Justice Department dragged its feet on the case for political reasons.
“We need to know whether others were involved in the election interference, whether they attempted to cover up the involvement of other political operatives, and whether there was a concerted effort to delay prosecution,” Mr. Hodes told a joint panel of two Judiciary Committee subcommittees.
Mr. Hodes said the public deserves to know whether political interference delayed prosecution of the case until after the 2004 elections and Mr. Bush’s re-election.
The controversy over the suspected political firings of several federal prosecutors underscores the need to hold the Justice Department accountable, he said.
Panel Republicans fumed at the charges. Rep. Chris Cannon, Utah Republican, suggested Democrats were recycling a six-year-old case to score political points against the Republicans in an election year.
“These cases are old news,” Mr. Cannon said.
The phone-jamming scandal has led to at least three criminal prosecutions and a lawsuit that was settled with Republicans paying the Democrats $135,000.
More than 800 hang-up calls jammed get-out-the-vote phone lines set up by the state Democratic Party and the Manchester firefighters’ union for more than an hour on Election Day, when Republican John Sununu won a hotly contested Senate race against then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat. Since Mr. Sununu won by nearly 20,000 votes, the more than 800 jammed phone calls likely had little impact on the outcome of the race.
Charles McGee, former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party, pleaded guilty and served seven months in prison for his role in the scheme.
Former Republican National Committee Regional Director James Tobin of Maine was convicted by a jury in 2005 of helping arrange the phone-jam calls. He was acquitted this year on appeal. Federal prosecutors are appealing the acquittal.
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