More on the New Hampshire phone-jamming incident

The Republicans say that it is an isolated political dirty tricks incident in a New Hampshire election that occurred three years ago - but the Republican National Committee has already spend $2.5 million dollars for the legal defense of James Tobin who was recently convicted of the phone jamming. Bloomberg has the report today.

The Democrats are asking why, on the day of the election and phone jamming, Tobin made about 24 phone calls to Ken Mehlman at the White House where he was then Political Director. Currently Ken Mehlman is Chairman of the Republican National Committee which is funding Tobin's expensive legal defense for no reason he will explain.

Interestingly, two Indian tribe clients of the convicted briber of Republican government officials sent money to the New Hampshire Republican Party just before the election. The amounts of the two contributions roughly equal what it cost to jam the phones. The New Hampshire Democratic Chairperson has found that Abramoff's clients only donated to elections in states where there were Indian gambling casinos - except in New Hampshire and one other state in which the Republicans were involved in a close election.

This is a classic voter suppression activity by James Tobin and two subordinates. James Tobin led the Republican National Committee's New England effort in the 2002 election, then based on that success became the region's director for President George W. Bush's re-election campaign in 2004. It resembles the many forms of voter Suppression used by Katherine Harris, then Republican Secretary of State for Florida and Co-Chair of the Florida Bush for President Committee, in the Florida 2000 Presidential election. A similar voter suppression activity was conducted by the Republican Ohio Secretary of State who caused too few elections machines to be places in Democratic precincts in the 2004 Presidential election. Such patterns of election tampering have been found in most elections that Karl Rove was involved in.

The Democratic lawsuit against the Republican state committee, the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee in ongoing. We will see what it turns up - or if the Republicans can maintain the coverup.