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Did Abramoff Pay for NH Phone Jamming?
Just when we thought the NH Phone Jamming case was dead – former Republican State Committee executive director, and convicted phone jammer, Chuck McGee, has claimed under oath that Sen. Judd Gregg’s chief of staff, Joel Maiola, personally delivered checks totaling $15,000 from the Mississippi Choctaw and Agua Calienti tribes to the NH Republican State Committee office a week before the 2002 election. This was the exact amount paid by the NH GOP to the now-defunct Republican Marketplace to affect the phone jamming scheme. The tribes were clients of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Former state GOP office manager Kristy Stuart’s testimony corroborates the story.
Maiola doesn’t dispute it, but said, "We've had no involvement in this (phone-jamming) matter and any suggestion otherwise is totally baseless and without merit." He added that he didn’t solicit the contributions and couldn’t recall how the checks got to the NH GOP.
Outgoing Democratic State Committee chair Kathy Sullivan wants to know: "What was Senator Gregg's relationship with Jack Abramoff?"
Last year, Sen. Gregg gave $12,000 in donations he’d received in 2002 and 2004 from the two tribes to charity. This, if you know anything about how cheap Judd Gregg is, had to be a great sacrifice for him.
~Jack McEnany
Also see: Jamming1, Jammus Interruptus, Jammerama
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