Ex-Bush Aide Denies Calls on Phone Jamming

I found this off of AmericaBlog, so I thought I'd take another look at the story. I wrote about the phone-jamming case here, which linked a phone-jamming scheme by a Bush campaign operative James Tobin to keep New Hampshire Democrats from voting in the 2002 elections, to both the White House and the Republican Party. Now Americablog presented some new information from an Associated Press story, titled Ex-Bush Aide Denies Calls on Phone Jamming. Here is the original AP Story:

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) -- A former White House political director denied Tuesday that he or anyone on his staff spoke with New England Republicans about a phone-jamming scheme designed to keep New Hampshire Democrats from voting in 2002.

Ken Mehlman, now chairman of the Republican National Committee, acknowledged that local GOP officials had called a White House operative in the days surrounding the election. But he said none of the conversations involved the phone-jamming incident.

"As White House political director during the 2002 election cycle, my staff and I regularly communicated with competitive congressional campaigns and Republican Party organizations," Mehlman said.

It is interesting enough that RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman is now denying yesterday's AP story linking Tobin with the White House. The original AP story said that the phone number Tobin called was the White House political affairs office. The White House refused to comment on which staff member was assigned that phone number, but the AP story did note that the political affairs office was led by Mehlman. And now we have Ken Mehlman denying that the Tobin calls involved the phone-jamming incident.

I would love to know who was assigned that phone number which Tobin made those calls. Was it your phone number Mr. Mehlman?