Breaking: Phone-jammer writes book on rigging elections

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Thursday November 15, 2007 · 10:05 AM PST

2007/11/15 · 10:05

Sounds like a page-turner, out soon from Simon and Schuster--How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Law Breaker.

Allen Raymond was a Republican rising star in 2002, until "pushing the envelope" for his GOP clients landed him in a three-month sentence in jail. He has not been making his former colleagues happy since he got out--for example telling the Boston Globe that Republicans have turned so "ultra-aggressive" and "ruthless" that he feared saying no to James Tobin about jamming phones would shut him out of future business with the RNC.

The RNC, which paid millions in legal bills for Tobin, but nothing for Raymond, is no doubt regretting that decision as they wait for Raymond to publish a much longer version of his bitter memories...

Raymond spent 15 years climbing toward the top of the Republican food-chain and getting a close-up view of the "morality" of RNC bigwigs.

Just for example, RNC Chair Ken Mehlman, whose piety on "vote fraud" didn't keep him from paying millions to James Tobin's lawyers.

Raymond's feisty attitude toward his former colleagues is a pretty stark contrast to James Tobin's silence. Tobin continues to be represented by two firms worth of partner-level lawyers, though the RNC claims they quit paying after the first three million or so. Nobody is taking credit for paying them now, but Tobin's wealthy former boss Steve Forbes seems to take a continuing and activeinterest in his case.

While "Tobin's" lawyers also worked on defending the RNC, Raymond's lawyer (like Raymond) has spilled some embarrassing beans:

A lawyer for one of the Republicans in the case backs up that claim. John Durken, the lawyer for Allen Raymond, a Republican whose consulting firm managed the jamming, says that the lead prosecutor in the case told him during one meeting that Ashcroft was involved in every decision.

Durkin told Raymond's judge that he ought to remember the phone-jamming idea did not come from Allen Raymond, and that "his client had been manipulated by senior Republican officials."

"This was not Allen Raymond's idea," he said, according to AP. "Tobin called on Raymond to do this."

Raymond's harsh words for his former colleagues include not just their behavior during campaigns but the what they've done to government since they took over Washington:

Republicans have treated campaigns and politics as a business, and now are treating public policy as a business, looking for the types of returns that you get in business, passing legislation that has huge ramifications for business," he said. "It is very much being monetized, and the federal government is being monetized under Republican majorities."

Heh--so now the phone-jamming will be monetized too?

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