GOP needn’t share phone jam papers

MANCHESTER, N.H. – State Republicans do not have to give state Democrats papers from an internal investigation of phone jamming on Election Day 2002, a judge ruled this week.

The Republicans had provided some documents but withheld others, citing the attorney-client privilege.

Judge Philip Mangones reviewed the documents – internal investigation reports and documents related to the party’s review of the scheme that jammed Democratic and firefighters union get-out-the-vote telephone banks – and decided the GOP need not share them as the civil case proceeds.

Instead, Mangones said Democrats are entitled to the same documents Republicans turned over to federal prosecutors during the case’s criminal proceedings.

“The ruling is 100 percent of what we wanted,” said Ovide Lamontagne, the GOP’s lawyer. “There was a lot more public policy interest here than the interest of two private litigants.”

Kathy Sullivan, state Democratic Party chairwoman, said she would now ask the GOP to provide the files, though Lamontagne said he believed all available documents had already been shared.

Mangones pointed out that much of the information Democrats seek is available in depositions filed a year ago.

Charles McGee, the state GOP’s former executive director, and Republican consultant Allen Raymond are serving prison sentences after pleading guilty to a federal conspiracy charge related to the phone jamming.

Former Bush-Cheney ’04 New England regional campaign director James Tobin of Bangor, Maine, has pleaded innocent and is scheduled to stand trial later this year on federal charges that he was part of the conspiracy.

The Democrats say they hope their lawsuit will show who else may have been behind the operation and who paid for it.