Lest There Be Any Doubt

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has now been linked to the NH phone jamming scandal. From the AP (emphasis added):

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a former Republican Party chairman, arranged the startup financing for a GOP telemarketing company implicated in two criminal cases involving election dirty tricks.

Virginia corporation records show Barbour's investment company arranged a quarter-million dollar loan to GOP Marketplace in 2000 and also gave a promotional plug to the telemarketer several months later.

A spokesman for the governor said Barbour had no idea the company would engage in criminal activity two years later. The lawyer for the now-defunct company's convicted president said Barbour was not consulted about its operations.[...]

[...]Barbour, who became Mississippi governor in 2003, gushed over the prospects of GOP Marketplace in a company press release in 2000. He predicted it would be profitable and "give Republicans an edge" by using the Internet to buy and sell telemarketing services.

The loan made Barbour and his Washington business partners part owners of the company, the incorporation papers show.

By 2002, according to federal court records, GOP Marketplace president Allen Raymond and the Alexandria, Va.-based company were carrying out political dirty tricks in New Hampshire and New Jersey.

Raymond, who once worked for Barbour at the Republican National Committee, is serving a three-month prison term after pleading guilty to arranging for hundreds of hang-up calls in New Hampshire in 2002. The calls jammed Democratic phone lines that were offering assistance in getting to polling stations in a close U.S. Senate race.