The former chairman of the Republican National Committee remembers telling someone at the White House that he had decided to have the RNC pay the legal defense bills for convicted phone-jamming conspirator James Tobin, but he can’t remember who.

Ed Gillespie told the New Hampshire Union Leader yesterday he informed the White House after he decided to authorize payment.

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Gillespie told its reporter that he had “informed the White House, without seeking formal approval, before authorizing the payments.”

Gillespie told the Union Leader the two accounts were “consistent” because he decided to authorize the payments before telling the White House and actually authorized the payments after telling the White House.

But state Democratic Chairman Kathy Sullivan called what she viewed as a change in Gillespie’s account troubling. If the White House was informed by Gillespie before he authorized payments, the White House could have had an opportunity to put a stop to it, and did not, she noted.

Democrats have long been trying to link the phone-jamming operation to the White House. The Senate Majority Project, a Washington-based research group with Democratic ties, has pointed out that court records show Tobin made about two dozen calls to the White House political affairs office on the day before, and the morning of, Election Day 2002.

Current RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, who headed the White House political affairs operation in 2002, said his former office had nothing to do with the operation.

Telemarketers hired by the state Republican Party on the morning of election day 2002 placed hundreds of hang-up calls to Democratic Party and Manchester firefighters union offices to jam their get-out-the-vote telephone lines, an apparent effort to keep likely Democratic voters from the polls.

The key election that day was between Senate candidates Republican John Sununu, who won, and former Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen.

Tobin was convicted of two telephone harassment charges for putting former New Hampshire GOP executive director Charles McGee in touch with former Republican consultant Allan Raymond, who in turn hired the Idaho-based telemarketer to jam the lines.

Tobin was sentenced on Wednesday to 10 months in prison and two years probation, and fined $10,000. McGee and Raymond have pled guilty to similar charges. McGee has served, and Raymond continues to serve, prison time.

The RNC paid only for Tobin’s defense by the Washington law firm of Williams and Connolly.

Gillespie told the Washington Post this week he authorized the payment because Tobin "was accused of doing something in his capacity as an RNC consultant, and we believed him to be innocent."

Williams and Connolly began representing Tobin about the time he was indicted in December 2004. So far, the RNC has paid at least $2.8 million for Tobin’s defense. He is appealing the conviction.

Gillespie yesterday told the Union Leader he could not remember who at the White House he informed of his decision to pick up Tobin’s legal bills.

“I’m not going to guess,” he said. “It was years ago, but as a matter of routine, I would have told somebody over there.”

If someone at the White House had expressed displeasure with his decision, Gillespie said, “It was too late. I had made the decision and they were not involved in it.”

Sullivan said she was “extremely troubled by the change in story. . .We have former RNC Chairman Gillespie changing his story from one day to the next about who had prior knowledge of the decision to pay Mr. Tobin’s legal fees.”

Michael Gehrke, executive director of the Senate Majority Project, has said he suspects Karl Rove may have been informed of the payments because "Rove was, and is, the Bush Administration’s point person for all things political."

Rove is scheduled to be in the state on June 12 to keynote a fund-raiser for the New Hampshire Republican State Committee.