Legal spending worries GOP camp

CONCORD, N.H. – A New Hampshire member of the Republican National Committee said she has misgivings about the committee’s role in defending a GOP operative accused of conspiring to suppress Democratic votes in the 2002 election.

Nancy Merrill of Lebanon noted that national party Chairman Ken Mehlman recently pledged zero-tolerance for tampering with voting.

“If this kind of expenditure deflects from that policy, then I’m uncomfortable with it,” she said.

The Associated Press reported Thursday the RNC has paid $722,000 to defend James Tobin of Bangor, Maine, who was a regional official in the national party when state Republicans paid to jam get-out-the-vote telephone lines on Election Day 2002. Republican John E. Sununu beat Democrat Jeanne Shaheen in one of the closest U.S. Senate races in the country that day.

“It’s a surprise,” Merrill said Thursday.

Concord lawyer Tom Rath is another New Hampshire member of the committee. Tobin’s local lawyer is from Rath’s firm, and Rath declined to comment because of that connection.

State Democratic Chairman Kathy Sullivan said her GOP counterpart, Warren Henderson, should resign because the disclosure belies his past assurances that Republicans were cooperating with federal investigators.

“This news proves that all the promises Republicans made about cooperating with investigators have been false,” Sullivan said. She called it a “$700,000 legal stonewall in the finest Washington tradition, designed to thwart the very investigation Mr. Henderson claims they had been cooperating with.”

But Henderson said he, like Merrill, was surprised to learn of the RNC’s payments.

“Those decisions are beyond the scope of my authority, so I’m not going to comment on them,” he said.

Henderson added that there’s no reason for him to resign: “I don’t have any more control over the RNC than Kathy Sullivan has over Howard Dean,” the Democratic national chairman.

Federal prosecutors allege that Tobin, then the RNC’s regional director, referred Charles McGee, then executive director of the state GOP, to Republican consultant Alan Raymond, who hired a telemarketer to jam the phones. The government says Tobin also called Raymond, explained the operation to him and asked Raymond if he could help McGee.

Tobin’s trial is scheduled for December. McGee and Raymond both pleaded guilty; McGee is in jail and Raymond is headed there.

The RNC did not help pay McGee’s legal bills.

“I wish,” lawyer Patrick Donovan said Thursday when asked about it. “It was never an option. And he still has a substantial outstanding bill,” Donovan added.

The RNC tried to keep a lid on its support for Tobin. Last month, RNC spokesman Aaron McLear refused to say whether the RNC was paying Tobin’s legal bills when the New Hampshire Union Leader presented evidence that it was, the paper reported Friday.

McLear, after checking with RNC lawyers, refused to answer any questions about Tobin, the paper said. It said McLear acknowledged Thursday that his refusal to comment was wrong.

“It’s not how we should have handled this,” he said.

After 2002, Tobin became regional chairman of President Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign. Though he insists he is innocent, he resigned shortly before the election after Democrats linked him to the phone jamming.