Ken Mehlman - Phone Jamming Scandal

Phone Jamming Scandal

A Democratic analysis of phone records introduced at the 2005 criminal trial of James Tobin, the Northeast political director for the RNC in 2002, show that he made 115 outgoing calls — mostly to the same number in the White House office of political affairs — between September 17 and November 22, 2002. At the time, the office of political affairs was headed by Mehlman. Two dozen calls were made from 9:28 a.m. the day before the election through 2:17 a.m. on the night after the voting, a three-day period during which the criminal phone jamming operation was finalized, carried out, and then abruptly shut down. Virtually all the calls to the White House went to the same phone number. In April 2006, Mehlman issued a statement on the matter, noting that his deputy for the Northeast states routinely discussed election business with RNC officials, and categorically stated that "none of my conversations nor the conversations of my staff, involved discussion of the phone-jamming incident."