Somebody has to say it, so I will:
John McCain is a grifter and a scoundrel.
He has built a career on a carefully crafted myth breathlessly repeated by his base of sycophants in the press. You know the hype: McCain the Maverick, McCain the Reformer, McCain the Straight Talker, McCain the ______ (insert worshipful drivel here).
Keep in mind that the same folks who sold George W. Bush and his failed policies to America are now working the streets to sell the myth of McCain—"the last honest man in politics".
Those willing to look behind the curtain will find a John McCain that has always surrounded himself with the most corrupt players on the political stage and kept himself one step ahead of exposure. His Abramoff investigation cover-up is a case in point (for details see this Diary).
Another one is the growing scandal swirling around his chief foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann.
Randy shapes McCain’s foreign policy and—surprise—that policy helps Randy’s former and future clients. Ca-ching!
This, you need to know about.
To the jump...
This scandal has gotten a little play, but mostly it is being ignored.
That should stop.
What scandal you ask?
Well, does the name Stephen Payne ring a bell?
If not, get out your notebooks, because here comes a new scandal linking Bush, Rove, Scheunemann, Abramoff and a host of other players in the GOP Wrecking Crew.
I have often described my research and writing about the Abramoff scandal as being like drilling a core sample into the massive glacier of Republican corruption. Jack Abramoff was involved in so many scams and stories, so many plots and so many layers of corruption. It still amazes me to find Abramoff connections to Republican scandal after scandal (For example, Abramoff was connected to the great Philly Puppet raid in 2000, but that's a story for another day).
More amazing is the fact Jack Abramoff was just one doorway in. There are many, many others. One of them is Stephen Payne. Perhaps you have heard about him.
Two weeks ago, the Sunday Times of London ran this story: President George W Bush lobbyist in ‘cash for access’ row.
The report was backed up with covertly shot footage of Stephen Payne breaking down the costs of access to the Bush White House. Like Abramoff, Payne is another doorway into the scoundrels running the Republican Corruptionist Party. In their exposé, Daniel Foggo and Steven Swinford of the Times reported that:
During an undercover investigation by The Sunday Times, Payne was asked to arrange meetings in Washington for an exiled former central Asian president. He outlined the cost of facilitating such access.
"The exact budget I will come up with, but it will be somewhere between $600,000 and $750,000, with about a third of it going directly to the Bush library," said Payne, who sits on the US homeland security advisory council.
He said initially that the "family" of the Asian politician should make the donation. He later added that if all the money was paid to him he would make the payment to the Bush library. Publicly, it would appear to have been made in the politician’s name "unless he wants to be anonymous for some reason".
Payne said the balance of the $750,000 would go to his own lobbying company, Worldwide Strategic Partners (WSP).
The article was accompanied by a WSP powerpoint (PDF) as well as the video. I started digging and I was stunned at the many connections Payne had. For example, one of his partners in his Team Eagle lobbying firm is connected to Jack Abramoff. Payne sat at the top of a heap of corruption, but fortunately I was not the only one with a shovel digging into this pile of muck.
Below the radar, there is some amazing reporting going on about this scandal. You should know about it. This is real reporting just like the kind celebrated in the best legends of journalism. And it makes me very proud that the progressive netroots are leading the way in the coverage of this story.
Those who have been following my Diaries know that I am not a slouch when it comes to research. I’m not bragging when I say that I’m pretty damn good. I know what’s involved in researching the webs of scandal.
That is why I’m really impressed with the work of Andrew Tilghman of TPM Muckraker and the amazing Lindsay Beyerstein of majikthise. Their work should be celebrated and we should help them get this story greater coverage. Since the Sunday Times broke the story on July 13, these two roots based journalists have been digging into the scandal and expanding the story. As of tonight they have connected the Payne scandal directly to Randy Scheunemann, John McCain’s key foreign policy advisor. Watching the story develop between these two has been a joy. It is graceful, competitive and exciting.
Andrew’s work is gathered on TPM Muckraker under their "Stephen Payne" tag. Lindsay’s stories are:
Pay-to-play lobbyist Stephen P. Payne makes Jack Abramoff look like a piker
Stephen Payne continues to make Jack Abramoff look like a piker
McCain's senior foreign policy advisor tied to global petro-influence peddling
McCain camp downplays adviser's links to pay-for-play energy company
Records cast doubts on McCain campaign's claims about Scheunemann's lobbying
Karl Rove overseeing George W. Bush Library project
Worldwide Strategic Energy Pre-Prospectus
McCain campaign continues to obscure the record on Scheunemann and Payne
Scheunemann, Payne, Latvia, and Iraq
That last post sort of blew me away (I’ll get to why in a moment).
Payne was in the business of selling his political connections to Bush and the Republican Party to land oil and gas contracts for his fellow Texans in Houston. Payne specialized in the riches to be made in the Nations that used to be part of the Soviet Union. These Nations had recently became independent and they had complicated relationships with the new Russia. The Sunday Times article focused on Payne’s efforts to get control of pipelines through the steppes of Asia to the Caspian Sea and the oil of Azerbaijan. To do this Payne set up dozens of companies and entities that ran out of his mail drop in Houston Texas. Several of these Payne Companies had hired Randy Scheunemann as their lobbyist. The totals are still rolling in, but so far it is known that Payne had paid Scheunemann at least $130,000 in disclosed dollars. We can be certain that there are more payments waiting to be uncovered.
By the time this story was seven days old, the Sunday Times weighed in with a new report that added more details and moved the story along. Tilghman and Beyerstein added more details after that and made a hard link between McCain, Scheunemann, Payne and Bush. Earlier this week their reporting inspired Pete Yost of AP to get in the act:
Sen. John McCain's campaign on Tuesday distanced its foreign policy adviser from a longtime Republican fundraiser who paid the adviser $130,000 when he was a lobbyist. [snip]
International Business & Energy Development Corp., is the third of Payne's firms to emerge as paying money to Scheunemann. The payments from mid-2001 to mid-2003 totaled $80,000, for issues ranging from monitoring legislation concerning global energy developments to lobbying on a bill authorizing Bush to provide assistance to Pakistan and India, according to the Senate filings. The post-Sept. 11 legislation lifted the last remaining economic sanctions against Pakistan. On Tuesday, the McCain campaign said Scheunemann generally tracked progress of the legislation, but did not advocate positions for or against it. [snip]
Another of Payne's companies, Worldwide Strategic Partners Inc., paid $10,000 to Scheunemann's firm in 2002. The third Payne firm, Caspian Alliance Inc., paid Scheunemann $40,000 in 2005 and 2006 on issues concerning energy development in the Caspian region.
As the McCain campaign often does in response to a story they wish was never revealed, they told the AP that there was nothing to see here. It was all old news and that Scheunemann hardly knew Payne. And—they claimed—that Scheunemann NEVER lobbied McCain.
Yeah. Right.
After the AP story, I decided to do some digging. There were two areas where it seemed like it would be easy to see if McCain was pushing issues for Randy’s clients. One was Pakistan. And yes, McCain had supported the side of the issue that Payne, Scheunemann and the Pakistan government were selling. Not only that, McCain’s key advisor Charlie Black and Jack Abramoff also lobbied on behalf of Pakistan for the same issues.
It is safe to say that McCain’s policies are being shaped by the lobbyists he surrounds himself with. Charlie Black is an example. So is Phil Gramm. And so is Randy Scheunemann.
As I worked on this last Tuesday, I found myself thinking about Latvia.
In the WSP powerpoint (PDF) released by the Sunday Times, Stephen Payne took credit for getting Latvia into NATO and other things. In addition, he had been made an Honorary Consul General for the Republic of Latvia back in 1999. Oddly, the Latvian Consulate in Houston was located at the same mail drop as the many other entities in Payne’s web of scandal. For a moment, I wondered "why Latvia?" Then I read a page 23 of a WSE Business Plan (PDF) that majikthise and later TPM Muckraker had placed on their Web sites (emphasis added):
Currently, Latvia holds the largest untouched oil reserve in the Baltics. WSE has already held several positive meetings with President Freiberga regarding the development of these reserves.
That was not the only oil related connection to Latvia. A decade ago oil from Russia had to move through the ports of Latvia for export to world markets. By controlling Latvia, the oil men of Houston could box in Russia and cutting the Russians out of the oil moving through the Caspian Sea region was another of their strategic goals. Through the 1990’s Russia was too weak to resist the oil men of Texas.
That changed when Putin took office. He fought back. He built a pipeline to bypass Latvia, he effectively re-Nationalize Russian energy companies and for the last decade Russia has been actively in competition with the oil men of Texas. Naturally, the boys in Texas decided to fight back and Payne and Scheunemann where on the front line of that effort. A key part of their strategy to keep Russia resources in the control of Houston was to enlarge NATO.
In McCain’s 2000 run for the White House, Randy Scheunemann was one of his key aides. By the spring of 2001 Scheunemann was trading on that connection for new business and money for his new lobbying shop Orion Strategies. McCain was happy to get on board. He traveled with Randy to the Baltics and Latvia. He led the fight for NATO expansion and made the case that it was to keep Russia in check. Even today, McCain’s entire policy towards Russia has been shaped by Scheunemann and the needs of his past (and future) lobbying clients. This was made clear in an NPR story broadcasted earlier today. Understanding the involvement of his team of lobbyists makes McCain’s policies towards Russia finally make sense (from a pro-corruptionist point of view).
So last Tuesday evening I was researching away—digging into this scandal. I was searching lobbying disclosures on file with the US Senate, DOJ database of lobbyist filings as Foreign Agents under Foreign Agents Registration Act, Lexis, Google and other tools. I was hot on the trail of Panye, Scheunemann, McCain and their adventure in Latvia. It was just after 11 and I thought I had a scoop. Then I decided to check in with Lindsay over at majikthise and yes, she already had a post up about the Latvian connection. Damn she’s good.
Andrew over at TPM Muckraker added more details about the Latvian connection the next day.
Perhaps over the weekend, the Sunday Times will update their coverage and Pete Yost of the AP may still be on the case.
The Payne Scandal has gotten more coverage. There has been some TeeVee, but the links of that scandal to McCain and his Foreign Policy mouthpiece are being covered by only a handful of reporters. Hell, you can count them on one hand.
More can and should be done. This is a scandal that needs more coverage. Follow the links and support the work of TPM Muckraker and majikthise. Get the word out.
John McCain has surrounded his campaign with people who have made their living off of trading influence and lobbying the people they help to get elected. Everybody working on his campaign is looking forward to the day when they can cash in and sell their access to McCain to the highest bidder and McCain has proven that he will respond to their efforts.
Behind his myth, behind his curtain sits an army of corruption hoping to ride a John McCain Administration to new heights of graft and destruction. They must be stopped. They must be exposed.
Randy Scheunemann should be forced to follow Phil Gramm out the door.
This is a big and growing McCain scandal. It will have legs if we help get the word out.
Cheers