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NH Rep Pushes for Phone Jamming Investigation
The New Hampshire phone jamming caper lives on!
In a letter to House oversight committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) today, Rep. Paul Hodes (D-NH) asks that the committee investigate. Not only is there evidence that the White House might have been involved in the jamming, Hodes writes, but there's evidence that Justice Department officials interfered in the prosecution. He wants the committee to "determine if a politically motivated plot did in fact obstruct justice in this case, and if so to take such steps as may be reasonable." You can read his letter here. Democrats had earlier requested that the Senate Judiciary Committee probe the matter.
Three guilty pleas and one conviction have resulted from investigation of the scheme, where Republicans conspired to jam Democratic phone lines on Election Day, 2002.
Comments (14)
Anon wrote on September 6, 2007 5:51 PM:Also worth asking: Why did the DOJ refuse to investigate wrongdoing by HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, when he made statements in public that he had used an illegal basis (party affiliation) to award HUD contracts?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/9/182953/5500
Anon wrote on September 6, 2007 5:53 PM:Also worth asking: Why did the DOJ refuse to investigate patently illegal activity by the HUD Secretary?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/9/182953/5500
Anon wrote on September 6, 2007 5:59 PM:Here's more detail on what HUD's Office of Inspector General turned up, and Lautenberg's call for a DOJ investigation of Jackson:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/14/42358/5250
Anon wrote on September 6, 2007 6:03 PM:Here is what Joe Lieberman had to say about Jackson's lawbreaking. Lieberman has, however, refused to follow up:
October 3, 2006
The Honorable Kenneth M. Donohue
Inspector General
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Washington, D.C. 20410-4500
Dear Inspector General Donohue:
I am writing to request that you release a public version of the report you completed recently concerning allegations of political interference with the procurement process in the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) (Investigation No. HQ06-00015). This investigation was conducted at my request following remarks made by the HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson at an April forum in Dallas, Texas. In those remarks, Secretary Jackson suggested that he rescinded a contract of a man who had expressed dislike of President Bush.
The report recently issued by your office contains credible evidence that Secretary Jackson intervened in decisions involving contractors that have Democratic political affiliations. The report also contains disturbing testimony from senior HUD political appointees that Secretary Jackson personally instructed them to consider political affiliation in contracting decisions. The review conducted by your investigators and auditors raises a serious concern that there may be systematic violations within HUD of federal procurement laws, which are structured to ensure that contracts are to be awarded on merit, without partiality or political bias.
In your transmittal letter of September 18, you indicate that you view the report as covered by the Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. ยง 552a. While there may be appropriate redactions to the report that the Office of the Inspector General should make to protect career HUD staff, I hope you agree that the Privacy Act should not be interpreted to prevent the disclosure of information about the alleged misconduct of cabinet members and senior political appointees. I therefore request that you produce a public version as soon as possible.
I appreciate the work of the Office of Inspector General in conducting this report. Your continued vigilance will be critical to ensuring the integrity of the procurement process at HUD.
Sincerely,
Joseph I. Lieberman
Buck wrote on September 6, 2007 6:49 PM:Ranking Member
I'm enjoying this play, but am just wondering at what point will Karl and the folks down the line enter the scene.
One summer down. One more to go. And lots of stuff yet to come out.
AS wrote on September 6, 2007 9:02 PM:What was Ed Gillespie's role in the phone jamming story? I forget. But his stock has been rising quite steadily obviously. And emptywheel has had a lot of good stuff about him as the in-house lobbyist for the telcos (FISA) and insurance industry (WH response cutting expanded health insurance to kids). More scrutiny of Gillespie, please--give the girl a little help.
Mark Richards wrote on September 6, 2007 9:06 PM:I have never in my lifetime known of a more hateful maladministration in America than this one. I doubt we've ever had, in our entire history, one that has so much disdain for the people and our laws.
These criminals, right to the very top, deserve the full measure of our legal system. None of them are worth reforming, but the injury of their actions can be corrected through direct, strong punishment; by bringing the full measure of their crimes to light; and by setting new protections to prevent such criminal acts in future.
Jamming phone lines is likely the tip of an iceberg that perhaps goes as far as direct manipulation of election data. There's no punishment severe enough for that.
Anonymous wrote on September 6, 2007 9:24 PM:"Tobin, a longtime GOP operative, was later appointed New England chairman for the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign, but resigned when he became a subject of the federal criminal inquiry.....
"Former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie decided to pay Tobin's legal fees. "He was accused of doing something in his capacity as an RNC consultant ...." Gillespie said. ...
"Gillespie said he informed the White House, but did not seek formal approval, before authorizing the payments."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/16/AR2006051601712.html
sailmaker wrote on September 6, 2007 10:17 PM:Maybe this is where someone (NH Dem Party?) gets that quality 'standing' in a law suit against the illegal wiretapping? If one is wiretapping one can jam a circuit. Since these calls were domestic/domestic, they would be illegal to tap as well as illegal to jam.
There would be the argument/defense that the power to copy data (as cited in the EFF case) and then datamine does not give one the facility to jam. However, as also noted in the EFF case, there were data corruptions and time lags in the receipt of data, which would mean that at least initially they were not copying to a separate data base, but interrupting, copying, then forwarding the data signal. At the interupt one could insert a jam for whichever numbers one wanted. I'm sure others have thought of this before, but I have not seen it mentioned.
JD21 wrote on September 6, 2007 11:44 PM:The guy is totally disconnected from reality. Because he wants to be.
Did you see this? It's outrageous. Truly over the top.
http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Salon_Former_CIA_officers_report_Bush_0906.html
Our President is a thug. He uses our military to attack who he wants. Doesn't care about the reasons other than he wants to do it. All of these smalltime incidents the Fox Republicans on this board keep trying to dredge up about Hillary to distract us from the outrageous truths about the Fox Republican officials and politicians are just that. Comparatively inconsequential distractions. Like a blowjob versus well over 3000 American soldiers getting their heads blown off. Sorry. America is not stupid. We see the truth no matter how much the Fox Republicans try to deny it.
JD21 wrote on September 7, 2007 12:04 AM:Check out the latest blatant distortions from our number one supporter of our Chearleader In Chief and his "Crusade" in Iraq. That these people at Fox call themselves a news organization is truly ridiculous. The whole "Fair and Balanced" propaganda posing as news media thing is such a tired lie.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200709060009?f=h_top
Rah rah rah, sis boom bah. Gooooooooooo trooops. Wheeeeeeeee!
Anonymous wrote on September 7, 2007 12:39 AM:"Jamming phone lines is likely the tip of an iceberg that perhaps goes as far as direct manipulation of election data. There's no punishment severe enough for that."
... and since there really IS no punishment severe enough... punishment is, for the moment... off the table...
JEP wrote on September 7, 2007 9:30 AM:Rove must have seen this one coming, because at the end of this investigation is a big pile of Turd Blossom.
Rove had fake Democrats taking down the Caller ID #'s from the Democratic Party, then he would distribute those phone numbers to a call center that jammed those phones with incoming calls.
Which is why tyhere were so many calls to and from the White House that day, to Rove's office.
I thin there are a lot of fake Democrats on the scene today, spying on us for their Republican fellows. And some of them have moved into postions of authority, and they are giving xome fvery bad advice to our party and our candidates.
Rove used a small group of New Hampshire fake Dems to get those phone numbers, who knows how many fakes ther are among us...
Anonymous wrote on September 7, 2007 9:39 AM:This was back in the day when Ken Mehlman was the Director of Political Affairs at the White House. And Mehlman was a Rove protegee.
Any coincedence that Mehlman skipped town and sold his house?