Justice Department may have tampered with phone-jamming case

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9145439

Dems Allege Interference in Phone-Jamming Case

Listen to this story... by Peter Overby

All Things Considered, March 26, 2007 · Questions about political pressure in the Justice Department are spilling over into the New Hampshire phone-jamming case.

Five years ago, New Hampshire Republicans jammed the phones of Democratic offices on Election Day, disrupting the Democrats' get-out-the-vote efforts and blocking phone calls from voters seeking rides to the polls. More than two years later, the New England coordinator for the Republican National Committee — who green-lighted the scheme — was charged with a felony and convicted.

But last week, a federal appeals court overturned the conviction.

Democrats allege that Justice Department officials in Washington interfered in the case, and they want Congress to investigate.

did not do anything illegal. This must be wrong.:sarcasm:

would spill ALL the beans on this scandal... hence the appeal and overturn.

From wikipedia on this subject:
A Democratic analysis of phone records introduced at Tobin's criminal trial show he made 115 outgoing calls to the White House between September 17 and November 22, 2002. <26> Two dozen of the calls were made from 9:28 a.m. the day before the election through 2:17 a.m. the night after the voting, a three-day period during which the phone jamming operation was finalized, carried out, and then abruptly shut down.

Virtually all the calls to the White House went to the same number, which currently rings inside the political affairs office. In 2002, that office was headed by Ken Mehlman, now the chair of the Republican National Committee. The White House has declined to say which staffer was assigned that phone number in 2002.

The national Republican Party, which has continued to pay millions in legal bills to defend Tobin, says the phone calls involved routine election business and that it was "preposterous" to suggest the calls involved phone jamming. <27> <28>. Mehlman said that the calls were simply part of the many he and his assistant made to field operatives in competitive races all over the country during that time period <29>.

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yeah right... 2 DOZEN calls to Mehlman about TWO congressional races that were going south. Let's see, 12 calls per race, 435 races... if each call averaged 2 minutes, that's over 174 hours of someone being on the phone with local campaign coordinators, and mind you, these are just calls from the state GOPers, not calls that must have come in from the campaigns themselves!

My guess is that this was a pilot program that the national RNC and Mehlman dreamed up... republican operatives so like their "ratfucking"... and if this went well and suppressed dem turnout (dems couldn't coordinate picking up retirees and union workers and others and getting them to the polling place) then they would have used this in many more races in the next election.