GOP can be questioned in phone scandal

Rick Klein

WASHINGTON — A New Hampshire judge yesterday cleared the way for Democrats to question top Republican Party officials — including its former national committee chairman — in connection with a 2002 phone-jamming scheme, as a local political scandal continues to reach into the realm of national politics.

Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge Philip Mangones granted the Democrats’ request to allow depositions of Republican officials. Each subpoena would have to be granted on a case-by-case basis, however. If individual subpoenas are granted, officials will be forced to answer questions under oath about whether they were involved in the plan to tie up Democratic get-out-the-vote hot lines on Election Day 2002.

“We want to figure out the scope of the conspiracy,” said Finis E. Williams III, an attorney for the New Hampshire Democratic Party. “Was the White House involved in this? We’d like to know that. The Republicans have never to this day come forward and come clean and said who was involved in this and who wasn’t.”

Among those in question are Ed Gillespie, who was Republican National Committee chairman at the time of the incident; former RNC political director Terry Nelson, who is now a top adviser to Senator John McCain of Arizona; and Alicia Davis, who worked in the White House political affairs office under Ken Mehlman, the current RNC chairman.

Williams said the Democratic Party will seek to compel testimony from Gillespie, Nelson, Davis, and at least five other officials. He said the party may also try to depose Mehlman, depending on the testimony the others give. Democrats also want to force the White House to identify who spoke to New Hampshire Republican operatives in the days surrounding the election.

Through his ruling, the judge made subpoenas possible, but he did not include individual requests for specific depositions. An RNC lawyer, Robert Kelner, indicated yesterday in court that some of the subpoenas may be contested.

National GOP leaders, including Gillespie and Mehlman, have denied knowing about the scheme in advance and say Democrats are using the situation to score political points. Kelner said the RNC did not fight the efforts to allow subpoenas because party leaders have nothing to hide, though he said each individual will decide whether to testify.

“To my mind, this appears to be largely a political exercise aimed at an election-year audience,” Kelner said.

According to court testimony, officials with the New Hampshire Republican Party hired a telemarketing company to tie up the hot lines Democrats and a local firefighters’ union had set up to help get voters to the polls. The scheme was called off after less than 90 minutes, after state party officials questioned its legality.

The incident, however, led to the conviction of two Republican Party officials — one associated with the state party and one with the national party — as well as an executive of the company that conducted the automated phone calls.

The phone jamming occurred as voters chose between Representative John E. Sununu and Governor Jeanne Shaheen in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country. Sununu won the race by about 20,000 votes, helping Republicans regain control of the Senate.

Democrats point to phone records that show that James Tobin, the national GOP official convicted in the scheme, had regular contact with the White House and the RNC during the three days in which the plan was finalized and carried out.

Tobin was the RNC’s regional director for the Northeast during the 2002 elections, and the party has covered his legal bills, which have totaled more than $2 million. Tobin, who was sentenced in May to 10 months in prison, has appealed his conviction.

“Top Republican operatives will finally have to answer questions about their involvement in an illegal scandal aimed at stopping people from voting,” said Michael Gehrke, executive director of the Senate Majority Project, a Democratic interest group that conducted the analysis of phone records.

The GOP depositions would become part of a civil lawsuit Democrats have filed against Republicans, seeking unspecified damages stemming from the jamming. The trial is to begin Nov. 27 — meaning the pretrial depositions would occur in the months leading up to the congressional elections.

© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.