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Granite Status: Tobin legal defense may total $2.5 million
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Feb 10, 2006 12:33am |
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| Category | News |
| News Date | Thursday, February 9, 2006 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By JOHN DISTASO
Senior Political Reporter
Thursday, Feb. 9, 2006
ARE REPUBLICAN donors still paying big time for the legal defense of convicted 2002 phone-jamming conspirator James Tobin?
The Republican National Committee’s latest financial report shows a disbursement of $1,771,360.21 on Dec. 15 to the Washington law firm of Williams and Connolly LLP, which has defended Tobin since he was indicted in December 2004.
The RNC last August acknowledged doling out $722,000 for Tobin’s defense in 2004 and early 2005.
Yesterday, RNC spokesman Aaron McLear wouldn’t say what the latest disbursement to the firm was for.
If it was for Tobin, well — ka-ching. That’s a total of $2.5 million.
The latest payment is dated the same day Tobin, a former RNC regional director, was convicted by a federal jury in Concord on two federal telephone harassment charges.
He was accused of helping former state GOP executive director Chuck McGee carry out a plan to jam Democratic and firefighters union get-out-the-vote telephone lines on the morning of Election Day 2002. Tobin was acquitted of the most serious charge, conspiring against voters’ rights. But he still faces a maximum seven-year prison term and $500,000 in fines. He is scheduled to be sentenced in May, but, meanwhile, his attorneys have filed motions challenging the verdict and seeking a new trial.
Last July, the RNC’s McLear refused to confirm to the New Hampshire Union Leader that the $722,000 the RNC had paid Williams and Connolly to that point was for the Tobin defense. A month later, another RNC spokesman, Tracey Schmitt, did an about-face and confirmed that fact to a Washington-based Associated Press reporter. |
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