Dems widen net in phone jam case

CONCORD, N.H. – State Democrats are digging for more information about the Election Day 2002 plot that jammed get-out-the-vote telephone lines.

They are asking a judge to force former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie and other national GOP operatives to answer questions under oath, according to court papers.

State Democratic Party officials say they are making deposition requests based on evidence from the criminal trial of former Bush campaign official James Tobin, of Bangor, Maine, who was sentenced last month to 10 months in prison on charges he helped plan the phone jamming. Tobin was convicted in December of two felony telephone harassment charges. He was acquitted of a third, more serious charge, of conspiring against voters’ rights.

Democrats are suing New Hampshire Republicans to find out how far up the chain of command the phone jamming plot reached, which tied up Democratic and a nonpartisan get-out-the-vote and ride-to-the-polls phone lines for more than an hour on Nov. 5, 2002, before Republicans called it off. The motion includes a request for White House phone and cell phone records.

“We want to know if someone at the White House was involved and if so, the extent of their involvement,” Finis Williams III, lawyer for the Democrats, said Thursday.

The motion dated Wednesday seeks permission to depose Gillespie, who in conjunction with the White House, signed off on the RNC decision to foot Tobin’s legal bills, according to court documents. Democrats also want to question Alicia Davis, former deputy to current RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman when he was political affairs director in the White House. Mehlman has said he and his staff did not talk to New Hampshire Republicans about a phone jamming plot.

Ovide Lamontagne, the Republicans’ lawyer in the civil suit, did not immediately respond to a voice mail message left Thursday.

In 2002 Tobin was a regional political director for the Republican National Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee. Democrats are seeking testimony from Terry Nelson, Tobin’s former RNC boss, and Chris LaCivita, Tobin’s former NRSC boss.

“We want to know what was discussed and we also want to know the extent that the RNC and the NRSC were involved,” said Williams.

Democrats also asked to depose Darrell Henry, a former lobbyist mentioned during Tobin’s trial, and Chris Cupit, former vice president of GOP Marketplace, the company that hired a telemarketer to carry out the phone jamming.

Democrats are asking that the depositions take place in Washington and Alexandria, Va.

Former GOP Marketplace president Allen Raymond and former state Republican Committee Executive Director Charles McGee both pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the phone jamming and testified against Tobin.

Republicans’ motion to dismiss the civil suit is pending. The trial is expected to begin in November and last two weeks.