Emails Detail RNC Voter Suppression in Five States

[CatWoman]

Previously undisclosed documents detail how Republican operatives, with the knowledge of several White House officials, engaged in an illegal, racially-motivated effort to suppress tens of thousands of votes during the 2004 presidential campaign in a state where George W. Bush was trailing his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry.

The documents also contain details describing how Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign officials, and at least one individual who worked for White House political adviser Karl Rove, planned to stop minorities residing in Cuyahoga County from voting on election day.

The efforts to purge voters from registration rolls was spearheaded by Tim Griffin, a former Republican National Committee opposition researcher. Griffin recently resigned from his post as interim US attorney for Little Rock Arkansas. His predecessor, Bud Cummins, was forced out to make way for Griffin.

Another set of documents, 43 pages of emails, provided to Truthout by the PBS news program "NOW," contains blueprints for a massive effort undertaken by RNC operatives in 2004, to challenge the eligibility of voters expected to support Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in states such as Nevada, New Mexico, Florida and Pennsylvania.

One email, dated September 30, 2004, and sent to a dozen or so staffers on the Bush-Cheney campaign and the RNC, under the subject line "voter fraud strategy conference call," describes how campaign staffers planned to challenge the veracity of votes in a handful of battleground states in the event of a Democratic victory.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/printer_072607A.shtml

[helderheid]

1. HOT DAMN!

[KittyWampus]

2. An Griffin, mind you, is working for Thompson now. These guys do broadcast their

strategy, if you watch them over time.

[proud patriot]

3. k and r

:headbang:

[L. Coyote]

22. Ditto that. K&R

[ananda]

4. See, Reeps know they can't win legally..

.. so..

[IChing]

5. Getting close to a Hatch Act violation

I bet some of the other e-mails that state the same thing
are on the government e-mails that are missing.

[wiggs]

6. Wow. Deserves WIDESPREAD MSM attention and discussion. This gets to the

heart of whether or not we are a democracy and whether or not we've been had... in a bloodless coup.

[old guy]

10. It deserves the MSM attention, but will it get it is the question.

I'm not going to hold my breath

[MissWaverly]

7. This is supposed to be on NOW Friday night

I really am glad to see that the MSM is picking this up, 3 years too late but better late than never.

[marions ghost]

11. NOW on PBS

thanks

[MissWaverly]

12. Yes, here in Maryland comes on before Bill Moyers

[marions ghost]

8. several references

worrying about having "GOP fingerprints" on their work....:mad:

Look how easy it is to get some lackeys to do your dirty work...

[Maraya1969]

15. "This is a goldmine" Coddy Johnson

on page 28 and repeated over and over.

[ProgressiveAmPatriot]

9. No big surprise here n/t

[ProgressiveEconomist]

13. When nobody's home to sign for a registered letter from "Operation EagleEye" or "RNC",

who's going to wait in line at the Post Office to retrieve it before the short deadline?

Also, poor urban renters tend to move much more frequently than wealthy suburban homeowners, and also tend to move to another apartment in the same neighborhood (precinct).

I hope NOW! interviewed experts on these kinds of issues to drive home the calculated racial and income discrimination that is the essence of "caging".

The Brennan Center for Justice in NYC has a five-page comprehensive summary of documented instances of vote caging at http://www.brennancenter.org/dynamic/subpages/download_file_49609.pdf

[marions ghost]

14. I looked at those documented instances

Brennan Center summary...

SO, although the lists were not acted on, we can assume that they would have been, in the event of a Dem victory.

So the intent was obviously there.:-(

[ProgressiveEconomist]

19. White Republicans tend to avoid direct confrontations with minority voters on Election Day

They tend to send their lists of address challenges to county election boards, who may quietly remove voters from the rolls of the registered long before Election Day. Then it is a paid poll worker, who usually lives in the neighborhood, who gives the would-be voter the bad news that her or his name is not in"the book". The voter may even get a provisional ballot, to be quietly discarded later rather than counted.

No fuss need be made on Election Day in order for vote caging to accomplish its purpose of suppressing a very likely straight Democratic ticket vote.

[marions ghost]

20. hmmm yeah

I see how that works, feeding into the "provisional ballot" scam...

So it would seem to me that the county election boards are complicit. They need to have MUCH more accountability IMO.

[L. Coyote]

16. HELLO! I doubt that Tim Griffin was more than an operative taking orders.

"The efforts to purge voters from registration rolls was spearheaded by Tim Griffin, a former Republican National Committee opposition researcher. ..."

"Griffin, a former protege of Karl Rove, was formerly research director of the Republican National Committee. In 2004, BBC News published a report showing that Griffin led a “caging” scheme to suppress the votes of African-American service members in Florida." http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/30/griffin-resigns

These articles fail to understand/acknowledge the hierarchy of the organization that committed these crimes. Griffin was just a worker in a much larger organization. The focus needs to shift up the political chain-of-command to the Decider.

Whose idea was this?
How long has it been going on?
Who illegally purged the Florida voters in 2000, resulting in Gore losing Florida? That's a good point to focus on!!

================================

Kenneth B. Mehlman, Former WH Director of Political Affairs, Former RNC Chairman=
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ken_Mehlman

Kenneth B. Mehlman is a lawyer, Republican activist and partner in the law and lobby firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. ...
Mehlman formerly chaired the Republican National Committee, was campaign manager for George Walker Bush's 2004 re-elected bid, and served as Deputy Assistant to President Bush and Director of Political Affairs on Bush's White House Staff, as well as chief of staff to Rep. Kay Granger (R., Tex.).

From 1996-1999, Mr. Mehlman was Rep. Kay Granger's (TX-12) chief of staff and he oversaw the political, legislative, and communications operations. Previously, Ken was Rep. Lamar Smith's (TX-21) legislative director from 1994-1996.

In addition to running Granger's campaign, Mr. Mehlman worked on William Weld's successful 1990 campaign for governor of Massachusetts, Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine's 1994 campaign, and House races in Virginia, Texas, and Georgia. He worked on Sen. Bob Dole's 1996 campaign, the 1996 Republican National Convention and President George Herbert Walker Bush's 1992 re-election campaign.

NOTE: Rep. Lamar Smith, Mehlman previous employer, is the House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member, the oversight committee which investigated Mehlman.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sara_Taylor
Sara Taylor is White House political director for President George W. Bush. (needs an update, re employment status)

Beginning July 2, 2003, Taylor served as Deputy to the Chief Strategist, Matthew Dowd, for the Bush-Cheney '04 Inc. re-election campaign: "Taylor worked for the White House as an associate political director (Midwest) doing political and public affairs outreach. During the 2000 campaign she worked from late April 1999 through Januay 2000 as coalitions director for Bush's Iowa caucus campaign, then did field work in the SC, VA, WA and IL primaries, and finally served as executive director of the Michigan campaign. Previously Taylor worked for two years at the Tarrance Group, the No. Va. polling firm headed by Ed Goeas. In 1995-96 she worked on Sen. Phil Gramm's presidential campaign in Iowa." (1)


George W. Bush-Campaign Organization
http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/bush/bushorg.html

Bush Cheney '04, Inc.

Marc Racicot = Chairman, June 16, 2003. Prior to taking the position of campaign chairman, Racicot served as chairman of the Republican National Committee; elected January 2002. Governor of Montana, 1993-2001. Attorney General of Montana, 1988-92. .....

Ken Mehlman = Campaign Manager, May 16, 2003. Director of political affairs at the White House Jan. 2001. National field director for Bush/Cheney 2000.

Kelley McCullough = Deputy to the Campaign Manager for Campaign Operations, May 30, 2003. Associate director of political affairs at the White House, Jan. 2001-Jan. 2002. Alabama director for Karl Rove + Company, 1997-2000.

Coddy Johnson = Field Director, July 17, 2003. White House associate director of political affairs since January 2001.

Matthew Dowd = Senior Strategist, May 16, 2003. Senior advisor to the RNC. Director of polling and media planning for the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign. Prior: President and founding partner of Public Strategies Inc., Austin, Texas.

Sara Taylor = Deputy to the Chief Strategist, July 2, 2003. White House associate political director.

The Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign staff was largely on leave from the Bush White House.
As a strategist, Taylor was very much an insider on "campaign strategic operations," such as the the caging lists used to deny Black soldiers in Iraq their civil right to cast a vote. Also, note below the case of Bush's New England campaign chairman James Tobin, convicted of telephone harassment and accused of conspiring to violate voters' rights.

Imagine all the "useful information" the Deputy to the Chief Strategist of Bush-Cheney 2004 must have for the committees!
What do you suppose the odds-makers are offering that this is the sort of info Taylor's attorney, Bradford Berenson (the former Associate Counsel to President Bush under Gonzales at the White House), will have her offer up for immunity?

James Tobin
From SourceWatch
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_Tobin

James Tobin, of Bangor, Maine, President George W. Bush's New England campaign chairman, was convicted December 15, 2005, on telephone harassment charges "for his part in a plot to jam the Democrats' phones on Election Day 2002." Tobin was acquitted by the federal jury on "the most serious charge against him, of conspiring to violate voters' rights."

Tobin was sentenced May 17, 2006, "to 10 months in prison (minimum security recommended); 2 years probation, and a $10,000 fine.......

As New England campaign chairman for Bush-Cheney '04 Inc., Tobin stepped down two weeks before the election when state Democrats accused him of involvement in a phone-jamming scheme on Election Day 2002. Tobin was later indicted for conspiracy.

Tobin ... is an employee of the Washington, D.C.-based, DCI Group and also has his own consulting firm, Tobin & Co...

....2004 election cycle (Tobin) was a Bush Ranger, raising at least $200,000 for the Bush 2004 reelection effort.

Ralph Reed, Southeast Regional Chairperson (LA, MS, AL, GA, FL)
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ralph_Reed

Q Was Ralph Reed involved in Florida voter caging or any other election irregularities?
Q Why did Mr. Rove arrange for Enron to pay large sums of money to Mr. Reed?

Executive director of the Christian Coalition, 1989-97, Ralph Reed was Bush-Cheney 2004 Southeast Regional Chairperson (LA, MS, AL, GA, FL)
Chairman of the Georgia Republican Party from 2001-2002, assisted campaign of U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss, worked on seven Republican presidential campaigns, consultant and senior advisor to the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign.

Reed is Founder and president of Century Strategies. Century Strategies received $250,000 from Capitol Campaign Strategies, one of Michael Scanlon's companies. Another Reed company, Capitol Media, is said to have sent an invoice to Jack Abramoff for $100,000 for "Louisiana Project Mgmt Fee."

FROM: DEAL OR NO DEAL? Abramoff's and Rove's ex-aide has "useful information" about Abramoff, White House
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x995236

================================

Playing Dirty ... cloak-and-dagger world of opposition research—the updated version of "dirty tricks"
The Atlantic Monthly | June 2004
by Joshua Green
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200406/green

... Barbara Comstock ... taking over the research team marked a significant change. She was a lawyer and a ten-year veteran of Capitol Hill who had been one of Representative Dan Burton's top congressional investigators during the Clinton scandals...: Filegate, Travelgate, assorted campaign-finance imbroglios, and Whitewater. ... Comstock put together a group of seasoned attorneys and former colleagues from the Burton Committee, including her deputy, Tim Griffin. "The team we had from 2000," she told... "were veteran investigators from the Clinton years. We had a core group of people, and that core was attorneys."

Griffin ... "We think of ourselves as the creators of the ammunition in a war," he says. "We make the bullets." ... campaign against Gore illustrates how what Bill Clinton referred to as "the politics of personal destruction" has become institutionalized ... a profession run by seasoned investigators, most of whom learned their craft on one side or another of the Clinton scandals ... have become the leading lights in the low-lit world of opposition research. ...

================================

Rise of a Very 'Loyal Bushie'
By Richard L. Fricker - March 28, 2007
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/032707a.html

If you want to know what the career path of a “loyal Bushie” looks like, let me introduce you to J. Timothy Griffin, a Karl Rove protégé who was slipped into the post of U.S. Attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas, and now is at the center of the controversy over whether the Bush administration has sought to politicize federal prosecutions.

Griffin has pretty much touched them all – the Federalist Society, work for a Clinton-era special prosecutor, the Florida recount battle in 2000, opposition research and voter security duties for the Republican National Committee in Campaign 2004, a brief tour as a military lawyer in Iraq, a deputy in Karl Rove’s political shop at the White House.

But now this carefully groomed Republican operative stands out as Exhibit A for Democrats as they contend that the Bush administration imposed political litmus tests on federal prosecutors who wield enormous power over the lives of those they investigate. ...

While at the New Orleans university, Griffin became a leader of the Tulane chapter of the Federalist Society, a powerful conservative legal organization and the chief training ground for right-wing lawyers dedicated to rolling back the liberal gains of the Warren Court and supportive of unrestrained presidential powers. ...

... he joined the Bush-Cheney (2000) campaign as deputy research director working for the Republican National Committee, what’s known in the Washington political world as “oppo” or opposition research ... Griffin’s résumé describes his job as “the primary research resource ... with over 30 staff.”

During the bitter Florida recount battle, Griffin served as legal adviser in Volusia and Brevard counties ... Bush rewarded Griffin in March 2001 with the job of special assistant to Michael Chertoff ....

==============================

Mark (Thor) Hearne, a Republican Party operative who had served as national election counsel for the 2004 Bush-Cheney presidential campaign.

The American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR) Ohio Report was submitted to Bob Ney's Government Administration Committee and the Department of Justice in March 2005 as evidence of extensive Democratic voter fraud and voter intimidation. Contributors (aka Felonious Bob's Jive Turkey List):
Mark F. (Thor) Hearne, II, William M. Todd, Mary C. Mertz, James E. Burke, Patrick F. Fischer, R. Patrick DeWine, Charles H. Gerhardt, III, Drew M. Hicks, Douglas G. Haynam, Mark R. Weaver, Mark Landes, Jeffrey Stankunas, Jack Morrison, Jr., Thomas M. Saxer, Thomas R. Houlihan, Tim A. Greenwood, James P. Silk, Jr.

The Free Enterprise Coalition (FEC) was a Republican front group established in 1998.
the GOP funneled $2.8 million through the Free Enterprise Coalition to fund election-related legal expenses between 2004 and 2005.
Free Enterprise Coalition board members, Robert L. Livingston, Chairman, Edward T. McMullen, Treasurer, Mark Elam, Richard Heffley, Dalton L. Oldham, Oscar Persons
Free Enterprise Coalition Affiliations = William M. Todd ... served as litigation counsel ... (as well as "general counsel for the Ohio Chamber of Commerce")
Political Contributions ...
* "On 12/21/06, Mac Thornberry (R-TX) disbursed $10,000 to the Free Enterprise Coalition in Washington DC for legal expenses."
* "On 9/14/06, Michael Burgess (R-TX) contributed $10,000
* "On 2/15/06 Kenny Marchant, a candidate for Texas state office, contributed $7.500
* John Linder (R-Ga.) contributed $1,225 for the 2005-2006 Cycle.

Hearne Created In-State "Voter Fraud" Front Group, Funded It With ACVR Dollars, Ran It with Fee Office Figure
Howard Beale - 06/13/2007 - http://www.firedupmissouri.com/hearne_acvr_cefm_lott_linked

FROM: FITRAKIS: Ohio, the DOJ scandal and "Thor" - the god of voter suppression
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1159656

=================================

With the possible exception of Starr, no one is more responsible than Ted Olson for paving the way for the Worst President Ever. ... Olson argued for the Bush/Cheney campaign in Bush v. Gore. ... he was rewarded with the position of solicitor general, a job once held by his friend Ken Starr ... who spent $60 million of the taxpayers’ money to smear the Clintons with allegations, much of which were generated by the Arkansas Project. ....

Conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. The Washington Post found that Scaife and his family's charitable entities have given at least $340 million to conservative causes and institutions – about $620 million in current dollars, adjusted for inflation. The total of Scaife's giving – to conservatives as well as many other beneficiaries – exceeds $600 million, or $1.4 billion in current dollars, much more than any previous estimate. ....

A conservative political organization with ties to the Rev. Jerry Falwell covertly paid more than $200,000 to individuals who made damaging allegations about President Clinton.... paid out over a three-year period, between l994 and l996, by Citizens for Honest Government, headquartered in Orange County.... ... Citizens for Honest Government's paid "expert witnesses" ... Nichols and three other individuals ... told the press that Clinton ... ordered state law enforcement officials to turn a blind eye to a cocaine trafficking ring ... because one of the ring's backers was a Clinton campaign contributor. They also alleged the drug smuggling ring was connected to a covert U.S. intelligence operation in Central America.

Rep. Jim Leach, (R-Iowa), chairman of the House Banking Committee, acknowledged in an interview in the fall of l996 that he had directed his committee staff to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the Mena allegations after first reading about them in the Wall Street Journal.

... House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., ... personally urged that Leach investigate ... CIA Inspector-General ... concluded ... there was no evidence ... Leach's House Banking Committee requested the CIA investigation.

Who is Roger Stone, Jr.? Buckley, Nixon, Reagan, Bush operative.
"Roger J. Stone, Jr. is a long-time Republican dirty-tricks operative who led the mob that shut down the Miami-Dade County recount and helped make George W. Bush president in 2000. He was also a campaign strategist during the presidential campaigns of Presidents Nixon, Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush. He is the chairman of the Fort Hill Group, a Washington, D.C.-based public affairs firm...." (From http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Roger_J._Stone,_Jr)

Who is Roger Stone? A slash-and-burn Republican black-bag election tamperer and consultant whose mentor was the repulsive Roy Cohn — the redbaiting hatchet man for Senator Joe McCarthy. Stone first made news in the Nixon Watergate scandal, when it was revealed that the 19-year-old apprentice McCarthyite had infiltrated George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign as part of CREEP’s sabotage plan. ... Stone helped Ollie North raise money for the Nicaraguan contras, and was a close associate of the notorious Lee Atwater ...

... Jeffrey Toobin ... the 2000 Florida election — details how Stone was summoned by Bush recount chief James Baker to disrupt the vote counting (Stone and his Cuban wife, Nydia, organized a screaming mob of Miami Cubans outside the headquarters of the canvassing board — Stone directed the mob by walkie-talkie from across the street — and intimidated the board into ending the count).....

FROM: Bush vs. Gore, the 'Arkansas Project,' the USA firings, and the Swiftboat Admiral
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1029113

==================================

MORE: The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election: Cuyahoga County Analysis
How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes
http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio.html

OHIO 2004: 6.15% Kerry-Bush vote-switch found in probability study
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x259620

[EFerrari]

17. k&r

I hope these bastards reap their just reward.

[ProgressiveAmPatriot]

18. Could a civil suit be brought against the RNC?

I would think damages for disenfranchisement would be extensive.

[L. Coyote]

21. Yes. It is already happening in Cleveland, Ohio for 2004.

King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/klbna.php

Oddly, the State of Ohio, defendants, are now Democrats forced into a position of litigating a suit brought against Blackwell.

[LSK]

23. but hearings do nothing

:eyes:

[Senator]

24. K&R