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NH Phone Jamming: Final Mystery Solved
Here's a coda for those TPM readers who've followed the New Hampshire phone jamming over the past couple of years.
The perps have been caught, restitution has been ordered. But one detail lingered, a loose thread, and unsolved mystery, and it bugged folks: just prior to the phone-jamming, two checks totalling $15,000 found their way to the New Hampshire Republican Party. The jamming, performed by a telemarketing firm, cost approximately $15,000. Who wrote the checks? Two Indian tribal clients of crooked super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Did Abramoff finance the New Hampshire phone jamming?
The answer appears to be no. Todd Boulanger, a lobbyist in Abramoff's shop, gave the two checks to a staffer for Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) to pass along, because, the staffer says, Boulanger "wanted to help out." Gregg wasn't running that year, mind you, but Abramoff didn't see that as a reason to stop passing money around.
So was that money meant to pay for the jamming? The Democrats say no. Paul Twomey, lawyer for the New Hampshire Democrats, told The New Hampshire Union-Leader, that "he is quite sure there is no Gregg connection to phone-jamming."
There you have it: Sometimes a contribution is just a contribution -- or as much as that could be the case when Jack Abramoff is involved.
Checks, written to support a legal cause, who were passed from one republican crook to another and ended up financing an illegal operation? That's tricky! Hmm, do you have such a strange 'deja vu' feeling right now, too?
December 21, 2006 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought the final mystery was, "What did Mehlman know, and when did he know it?"
December 21, 2006 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with Gray: I thought the final mystery was: were any of those phone call to the White House related. Or, actually, Gray put it best: "What did Mehlman know, and when did he know it?"
December 21, 2006 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, I can buy off on Senator Gregg not knowing about the phone jamming scheme but are we to believe that no one from the RNC requested $15k from Abramoff or Boulanger? Seems a bit too coincidental to me.
December 21, 2006 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Gray put it best: "What did Mehlman know, and when did he know it?""
This one isn't from me, but from TLR. Great line, I love it!
:D
December 21, 2006 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does anybody really believe this? Or, more to the point, is there really anything here to believe? The checks were written, passed along, and cashed because somebody "just wanted to help out."
So?
If someone was accused of giving $15,000 to a hit man who later tried to kill one of their business competitors, could they just shrug it off by saying that they "just wanted to help out"?
When you think about it, it isn't even realy a denial, is it?
--MarkusQ
December 21, 2006 6:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't a "coincidence" like this the reason Delay is facing trial in Texas?
Now, I know that the House can refuse to seat a Congressman in the event of an ethical or legal issue, or a problem with an election. Can the Senate? With Gregg? 2 years after the election?
Is it a coincidence that the "security code" I have to write in below is the word "collar"?
December 21, 2006 11:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd like to see an explanation behind Jack Abramoff's 2002 contributions to recently re-elected Independent DC Councilmember David Catania. Catania is openly gay and used to be a Republican until George W came out against gay marriage.
Catania also received multiple donations from Randy "Duke" Cunningham briber Mitch Wade.
Josh Marshall covered this in TPM in early 2006, but it never came to closure.
December 23, 2006 8:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Seems to be the perfect way to run a Mafia type crime syndicate. Oh,Yeah.
December 20, 2007 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink