Drip drip drip. Earlier

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Drip, drip, drip. Earlier this week we reported that Allen Raymond and his telemarketing firm GOP Marketplace were being investigated by state and federal authorities for sabotaging Democratic phone-banks last election morning in New Hampshire.

We further pointed out that Raymond is the Executive Director of the Republican Leadership Council (RLC) and that organization has, on its Board, eight United States senators: Senator Robert Bennett, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Senator Susan Collins, Senator Pete V. Domenici, Senator Jon L. Kyl, Senator Frank H. Murkowski, Senator Olympia Snowe, and Senator Arlen Specter.

Well, now it turns out that at exactly the same time GOP Marketplace was shutting down the Dems’ phone operation, the RLC was paying GOP Marketplace to do work for them too.

According to politicalmoneyline.com, the RLC “indicated in its Section 527 IRS report (signed by Raymond) it paid GOP Marketplace (Raymond’s firm) $28,983.62 on 11/4/02 for ‘Phone bank.'”

Is it time for even one of these senators to go on the record about this? Disassociate themselves from it in some way? Look, obviously these worthies probably don’t have any idea what Raymond was up to. But when a United States senator has a direct political association with someone who is being investigated by the Justice Department for potential criminal interference in a federal election, shouldn’t they say something?

Meanwhile, the New Hampshire Republican party is playing the ‘huh? whah? ahhdunno’ card in the call-jamming investigation. This from a follow-up in this morning’s Manchester Union Leader:

Election Law Committee member Richard Kennedy, R-Hopkinton, said the party is attempting to get back the $15,000 it paid to GOP Marketplace for telephone calls to get out the vote. “If we don’t get it back, you might see a theft of services charge,” he said.

Please …

P.S. Special thanks to Betsy Devine for the heads-up on the new Union Leader piece.

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