NH State GOP ordered to provide documents

State GOP ordered to provide documents
By JOHN DiSTASO
Senior Political Reporter
The Union Leader

MANCHESTER — A judge has ordered the New Hampshire Republican State Committee to provide him with all documents from an internal GOP probe of an illegal operation that jammed Democratic and firefighters union get-out-the-vote telephone banks on Election Day 2002.

Judge Philip Mangones ruled this week that by June 30, the state GOP must give him “a complete copy of all internal investigation reports and their supporting documentation.”

The Republicans had provided some documents to the court in the past, but withheld others, citing the attorney-client privilege and saying some were “work product.”

Mangones said he will review the documents in private “to determine whether the privileges asserted by (the Republicans) are well-founded.”

If he finds the documents do not contain information that falls under the attorney-client and work product privileges, Mangones is expected to allow them into evidence in a Democratic Party civil lawsuit against the Republicans filed last summer.

The suit contends the phone-jamming operation interfered with the Democrats’ constitutionally-protected rights to participate in elections by blocking their get-out-the-vote efforts.....