GOP paying vote-tampering defense bills for campaign official News
GOP paying vote-tampering defense bills for campaign official

[JURIST] The Republican National Committee has spent over $722,000 on lawyers from the highly-regarded Washington firm Williams & Connolly [firm website] to defend James Tobin on vote tampering charges, an RNC spokesperson confirmed Wednesday. Tobin, President Bush's 2004 campaign chairman for New England, faces four felony charges that he conspired [JURIST report] to jam phone lines and block Democratic voting drives during the 2002 Senate election in New Hampshire, which Republican John Sununu won in a tight race. Earlier this week RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman reaffirmed the party's commitment to a zero tolerance policy on voter interference but the RNC is footing Tobin's legal bills because they say they believe Tobin's assurances that he committed no crime. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

No lynchings reported in US for first time

On December 30, 1952, the Tuskegee Institute reported that 1952 was the first year of no lynchings of African Americans in the United States in the 71 years it had kept records. Learn more about lynching and listen to Billie Holiday's jazz recording of the 1938 protest song Strange Fruit.

USSR established

On December 30, 1922, representatives of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and the Transcaucus approved the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, creating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). During World War II, the USSR would also annex Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Moldova. Learn more about the history of the USSR from the BBC.