Ex-GOP Operative in New Hampshire IndictedFormer Republican operative James Tobin has been indicted for making false statements to the FBI in connection with the bureau’s investigation of a phone-jamming scheme in New Hampshire in 2002, according to court filings examined by TPMmuckraker.
Details to follow…
Update: Here’s the indictment. It contains two counts, both related to making false statements to the FBI during its investigation into the New Hampshire GOP’s effort to jam the phones of the Democratic Party on Election Day 2002.
It charges, in part:
“Tobin stated that when he first called Allen Raymond to discuss the phone-jamming scheme, Raymond and Charles McGee had already spoken with each other about the plans. In fact, as Tobin well knew, Tobin spoke with Raymond before Raymond was contacted by McGee, and Tobin requested that Raymond assist McGee with the plan.”
McGee, the former executive director of the New Hampshire GOP, and Raymond, a GOP consultant, both were convicted and served jail time in connection with the scheme.
But Tobin’s own 2005 conviction relating to the scheme was thrown out on appeal in 2007*.
Dane Butswinkas of the Washington law firm Williams and Connolly, who is representing Tobin, declined to comment when reached by TPMmuckraker. The Republican National Committee has in the past paid for Williams and Connolly’s defense of Tobin.
And phone records released in Tobin’s 2005 trial show that he made two dozen calls to the office of Ken Mehlman, then the White House’s political director, within a three-day period around Election Day 2002. Mehlman has said none of the calls involved the phone-jamming incident.
According to a court document, each count is a felony with a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
*This sentence has been corrected from an earlier version.