The scandal unfolds, oh so slowly.
Monday, April 4, 2005
Fourth man indicted in Republican phone-jamming scheme
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- A fourth man has been charged with taking part in a Republican scheme to jam Democrats' get-out-the-vote phone lines on Election Day 2002.
Shaun Hansen, of Spokane, Wash., headed a former telemarketing company that placed hundreds of hang-up calls to five phone lines run by Democrats and one run by the Manchester firefighters union.
Prosecutors say Hansen's Mylo Enterprises of Sandpoint, Idaho, was hired by Republican operatives to place the calls.
Hansen is accused of violating a federal law that forbids placing anonymous telephone calls to annoy or harass someone. He has not entered a plea, but is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Concord on May 9.
The former executive director of the Republican state committee, Chuck McGee, has pleaded guilty in the scheme and been sentenced to seven months in federal prison. Allen Raymond, a GOP consultant from Virginia, also has pleaded guilty and been sentenced to five months in prison.
James Tobin, of Bangor, Maine, who was regional director of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee at the time, has pleaded innocent to similar charges. He is scheduled to stand trial in June.
Tobin resigned as New England director of President Bush's reelection campaign last fall before he was indicted, but after Democrats named him as a possible target of the federal investigation into the phone-jamming conspiracy.
Federal prosecutors say McGee thought up the plan and asked Tobin for help executing it. At Tobin's suggestion, McGee contacted Raymond and asked him to find a telemarketer to make the calls. Raymond then hired Mylo Enterprises.
Hansen could not be reached for comment by the New Hampshire Sunday News. But he has said his firm received $2,500 from Raymond's former company, GOP Marketplace LLC of Alexandria, Va., to place the calls. He has also said a lawyer told him the job was legal.
More at http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050404/NEWS0201/50404020
Of course, I'm sure this is the ONLY time the GOP has cheated!
More seriously, remember how close it was in 2000? Can you imagine if a little of this sort of cheating tipped the balance, so NH went to Bush, and the history of the world was forever changed?
Egads what a scary thought