In the matter of Republican campaign phone jamming in New Hampshire, the Department of Justice prevented prosecution.
The Justice Department delayed prosecuting a key Republican official for jamming the phones of New Hampshire Democrats until after the 2004 election, protecting top GOP officials from the scandal until the voting was over.
An official with detailed knowledge of the investigation into the 2002 Election-Day scheme said the inquiry sputtered for months after a prosecutor sought approval to indict James Tobin, the northeast regional coordinator for the Republican National Committee.
Remember: a great deal of DOJ effort was given to efforts to prove Democratic fraud where none existed. Now DOJ isn't talking.
Paul Twomey, a lawyer for the state Democratic Party, said the delay spared Republicans embarrassment at the peak of the campaign because a pending deposition would have revealed that several state GOP officials knew about the scheme, which was hatched by their executive director, Charles McGee. The delay also stalled the case beyond its statute of limitations, depriving Democrats of full discovery, he said.
Citing longstanding policy, spokesman Peter Carr said the Justice Department wouldn't comment on its investigation.
The prosecutor, Todd Hinnen, who was prevented from pursuing the case was transferred.
In late October 2004, Justice Department officials told Hinnen it was too close to the election to bring such a politically sensitive indictment, putting it off until late November.
In early 2005, Hinnen submitted a lengthy memo arguing for a criminal indictment treating the New Hampshire Republican State Committee as a corporate entity. Hinnen noted that the party lacked an ethics policy at the time of the phone jamming and that its officials had refused to share with prosecutors the results of an internal investigation of the scheme.
Craig Donsanto, the chief of the department's Election Crimes Branch, objected to an indictment, arguing that the state GOP's "shareholders'' are the voters.
Ultimately, John Keeney, a career deputy assistant attorney general, directed Hinnen to drop the idea.
...In August, 2005, Hinnen was detailed for 18 months to a National Security Council job in the White House, leaving other prosecutors to handle Tobin's trial.
