Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

Abramoff’s team repeatedly discussed donations as the reason Republican leaders should intervene for the Saginaw, the e-mails show.

“The tribes that want this (not just ours) are the only guys who take care of the Rs,” Abramoff deputy Todd Boulanger wrote in a June 19, 2002, e-mail to Abramoff and his lobbying team, using “Rs” as shorthand for Republicans.

“We’re going to seriously reconsider our priorities in the current lists I’m drafting right now if our friends don’t weigh in with some juice. If leadership isn’t going to cash in a chit for (easily) our most important project, then they are out of luck from here on out,” he wrote, referring to political donation lists.

The e-mails have become evidence in a federal corruption probe into whether lawmakers, congressional aides and administration officials helped Abramoff’s clients in exchange for gifts and donations.

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- 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.

On Nov. 5, 2002, repeated hang-up calls jammed telephone lines at a Democratic get-out-the-vote center during a New Hampshire Senate race in which Republican John Sununu defeated Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, 51 percent to 46 percent.