A few months ago, the GOP gurus were upset, but now they are happy. How can they be happy? All their most Rovian candidates were shot down in the primaries by John McCain, who's never been in their pockets.

The GOP leaders are happy because they feel confident that McCain can be pushed into a graceful exit before the convention. Having taken the (minimal) heat and (even less) scrutiny from press for a year of primary season, he will step aside for a candidate who will look clean, exciting, and new, swapping loser for winner.

Republicans have been thinking about how they could profit from the Torricelli model since 2004.  Now they know how.

Who is the secret candidate we will be handed? Condoleezza Rice? Maybe, but more likely General Petraeus.

It won't be in bookstores for another week but that didn't stop Amazon "reviewers" last week from posting low-ball reviews. The book is phone-jammer Allen Raymond's How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative, a colorful, profane, and surprisingly frank memoir of sleazy politics.

It would be quite a job to track GOP lowballers around the two-way web but you may find it an interesting hobby. (On Barnes and Noble: "Pitiful and poorly written," some reviewer with future-vision claimed on Christmas Day.)

Media mentions of Allen Raymond's book have mostly talked up his phone-jamming, for which his RNC pals threw him under the bus, but ....

The first advance reviews of the juicy tell-all book on the NH phone-jamming scandal hit newspapers this morning.

Former GOP rising star Allen Raymond doesn't hold back on the inner details of Republican telephone trickery--for example, "angering union households with calls in which people with Latin-sounding voices talked favorably about a rival candidate's support for the North American Free Trade Agreement" or using "the voice of an angry black man, posing as a Democrat, to stir up 'fear, racism, bigotry' in white neighborhoods."

A second story, also new, may embarrass Republicans even more:  McClatchy Newspapers say an unnamed Administration source told them that the slow-walk of prosecuting top phone-jammers was orchestrated within the Department of Justice. More links and quotes below the fold.

Sounds like a page-turner, out soon from Simon and Schuster--How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Law Breaker.

Allen Raymond was a Republican rising star in 2002, until "pushing the envelope" for his GOP clients landed him in a three-month sentence in jail. He has not been making his former colleagues happy since he got out--for example telling the Boston Globe that Republicans have turned so "ultra-aggressive"  and "ruthless" that he feared saying no to James Tobin about jamming phones would shut him out of future business with the RNC.

The RNC, which paid millions in legal bills for Tobin, but nothing for Raymond, is no doubt regretting that decision as they wait for Raymond to publish a much longer version of his bitter memories...

Amazingly, even under the threat of Congressional oversight and the (occasional) spotlight of national press, the Justice Department continues its pattern of slow-walking  their phone-jamming "investigation."

Their latest trick seems to be keeping Andrew Levchuk, the federal prosecutor  the federal prosecutors overseeing the case of James Tobin occupied elsewhere with nearly full-time demands. Recent court documents (quotes below the fold) make this clear.

This is of course the same Justice Department that assigned exactly one FBI agent to work part-time investigating the phone-jamming and then prevented said agent from following any leads that led to Washington, DC.

The House Judiciary Committee has a new,  better way to unravel the phone-jamming coverup.

Thats the real news in this letter from Conyers to Attorney General (pdf)--something reporters seem to have missed, so far.

No, Associated Press, the House Judiciary Committee is not headed back to NH in 2002. It will not be re-asking old questions of the old suspects, all of whom seem to have lawyered up and/or lost their memories.

"What did the White House know and when did they know it?"  

That's what we want to know--and it's why Conyers will start from the Washington, DC end of the phone-jamming tangle.

"The Bush administration has spent a lot of time talking about mythical cases of voter fraud and election improprieties," says the editorial in today's NY Times, "but the New Hampshire phone jamming case was the real thing."

Amen!!

The Times is endorsing the recent request by Representative Paul Hodes for a Congressional investigation, citing multiple actions by the now-disgraced Department of Justice that left many avenues unexplored or even blocked.

In other phone-jamming news, James Tobin's lawyers filed a motion (on September 14) for aJudgment of Acquittal on grounds that seem to me completely outrageous...more below the fold.

What did the White House know and when did they know it? Several million Republican dollars and lots of Department of Justice  slow-walking went into an effort to wall off investigation of any higher-ups in the NH phone-jamming scandal.

What's new is that Representative Paul Hodes (D-NH)--a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee--is asking his own committee to investigate.

And with an overwhelming Democratic majority in the House (233 of 435 members), this request from Hodes is likely to get more traction than a request to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which never went forward.

Thursday's Union Leader has the only news so far:

A new trial for accused 2002 GOP phone jamming conspirator James Tobin is expected in either December or January. Tobin's conviction on phone harassment and conspiracy charges was reversed by a federal appeals court in March and remanded to the trial court... Briefs will begin to be filed in September.

This could be a lot more interesting than Tobin's first trial, for a number of reasons.

If you're wondering how a crime in 2002 leads to a trial in 2007 or 2008, here's why Paul Krugman sees the NH phone-jamming prosecution as a "slow-walk" with links to US Attorney-gate.

"I accept full responsibility," says the rich wrongdoer hoping to get zero punishment. "Your honor, hasn't my client suffered enough?" asks the expensive lawyer.

This morning's NY Times showcases so pure a gem of PR-speak that Kossites should take note of its themes--we will hear them again as the corrupt regime that's been running our country slowly self-destructs in a firework show of indictments.

The Smithsonian's now ex-director Lawrence Small made substantial contributions to George W Bush's 1999 war chest, Tom DeLay, Bob Ney, Rick Santorum, and similar folks. But Small's regal lifestyle, paid for at least in part by Smithsonian funds, finally proved his downfall. The Board of Regents, pledged to keep tabs on him, is now the subject of a new scathing report.

Trying to shut down NH Democrats on Election Day, with non-stop hangup phone calls--was that or wasn't it "telephone harassment"?

Maybe not, says the US Court of Appeals, overturning James Tobin's December, 2005, conviction for his role in the 2002 phone-jamming of get-out-the-vote lines run by NH Democrats and by the Manchester Firefighters. They remanded the case to NH for further action.

But what action? NH's US Attorney Thomas Colantuono is now under national scrutiny for his slow-walk of the phone-jamming prosecutions. John DiStaso in today Union Leader reports some news.

Many new voices are now asking why the Federal investigation of the  NH's 2002 phone-jamming scandal moved so slowly. (Paul Krugman called it a "slow-walk.")

How long should it take the US Department of Justice--and NH's Bush-appointed US Attorney Thomas Colantuono--to investigate phone-jamming? Just for comparison, in Virginia in 2002, a GOP official was indicted in April of 2002 for a phone-crime committed in March of 2002.

If you're new to this angle, or wondering where to dig further, this post would be a very good place to start.

On March 21, 2007 the US Appeals Court overturned phone-jamming conspirator James Tobin's conviction for his role in the 2002 Election Day GOP scandal.

The court's 20-page opinion turns on narrow legalism, clearly rejecting the idea that Tobin was innocent:

That Tobin assisted in the substantive crime is patent; his call to Raymond was integral to the accomplishment of the scheme. ...We think it fair to add that despite the unattractive conduct, this statute is not a close fit for what Tobin did.

One tiny claim hidden by RNC lawyers inside a "haystack" of other claims. bought this surprise ending...

Breaking--In a damning 10-page letter to Senator Patrick Leahy, Chair of the Senate Juciciary Committee, NH Democrats spell out step by step the evidence against what Paul Krugman called the "slow-walk investigations" of the NH phone-jamming. Thanks to Josh Marshall breaking this story and for posting the 10-page letter (pdf).

Well, I had my own small breakthrough on this written up--so, after pointing you toward Marshall's big news, let me just also post my latest piece of the puzzle.
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As 2003 rolled slowly onward, the GOPMarketplace website vanished and memories had lots of time to get cloudy. By the time the FBI got a statement in Dec. 2003 from their chief suspect Chuck McGee, more than a year had gone by since the crime itself.

Today, I stumbled on an new piece of that puzzle, evidence that NH'sUS Attorney Thomas Colantuono didn't swing into gear until a green light came from Washington.

How do our new Democratic Senate and Congress look to the many who have so much to hide?

Scarily revealing is the oh-so-subtle promo (pdf) for DC white-shoe lawfirm Covington and Burling co-authored by one of the many high-priced DC lawyers who worked for the RNC on the NH phone-jamming, one Robert Kelner. (Quotes etc. below the fold.)

Phone-jamming fans may recall that Kelner let slip some embarassing info to a TV station in NH--making it clear that the RNC's defense lawyers were fully informed about DOJ investigations into the phone-jamming's White House connection, although said investigations were kept a deep secret from Democrats.

Kelner's remark inspired a Freedom of Information Request to the DOJ (pdf here), filed on April 18, 2006 but not yet answered by the DOJ.

Trying to board a plane with a loaded gun--think that might get you in trouble?

Not if you are a NH Republican state legislator--at least, not when NH's US Attorney Tom Colantuono is on the job.

When the x-ray machine found a loaded revolver in the carry-on bag of NH Republican state legislator Howard Dickinson, TSA and airport officials asked Colantuono to file federal charges. He refused.

Gun-toting Howard Dickinson--veteran GOP strategist Dave Carney -- former NH House Speaker Gene Chandler -- NH racetrack owner Richard Hart--what do these NH people have in common? All have ties to Colantuono or to Republicans, all showed up in my search of NH newspaper archives for various kinds of publicized wrong-doing, and none faced any charges from Tom Colantuono.

I've complained before that the NH phone-jamming was pursued incredibly sloowwwwly by Colantuono--but that may be just part of the story of how Colantuono made Krugman's list of shame, the list of US Attorneys who didn't get fired.

Hey--what about the US Attorneys who didn't get fired? Paul Krugman is asking (free link here)--and it's a good question.

Check out the US Attorney in charge of the NH phone-jamming, Thomas Colantuono. Does Gonzales give prizes for slow response to Republican dirty tricks? It took Colantuono's people more than a year before the FBI questioned their top/only suspect in the NH phone-jamming, a crime by Republicans.

But in other matters, Colantuono could move fast.  Just before the 2004 elections, he moved fast to block Democrats from questioning phone-jamming suspects--and fast again to file corruption charges against a NH Democrat.

In 2006, right after the Democrats' landmark electoral victory, Colantuono also moved fast to shut down his phone-jamming enquiries, making a guilty plea deal with the last defendant that gave the Feds nothing and the Republicans everything. Let me back this sordid story up with more detail.

Ten days after the Democrats' national landslide victory, Bush-appointed US Attorneys in both NH and Idaho pledged not to question Shaun Hansen any further about his role in jamming NH phones on Election Day 2002.

I was there (and "real reporters" were not) in NH Federal District Court on November 16, when 34 year-old Shaun Hansen pled guilty to two felony counts arising from the 2002 NH phone-jamming scandal.

Hansen's deal with the feds, and his vague and evasive "factual plea" warrant scrutiny which the press has not given it, so ....