Raw Story is breaking news that the McCain campaign issued payments to Rick Davis' lobbying firm rather than pay Davis directly.
The Arizona senator's presidential campaign paid at least $90,000 to Davis Manafort Inc., the firm Davis founded with Republican lobbyist Paul J. Manafort, during the first six months of last year, while Davis was serving as CEO for the campaign. Five payments were made for "communications consulting" in increments of $10,000 to $40,000, according to a Raw Story review of campaign finance records maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics.
The payments stopped in July 2007, when Davis and some other top McCain aides reportedly began working for free, as McCain's campaign struggled to raise money. Davis himself never received a personal salary from the campaign, although he reportedly earned $20,000 per month from the campaign.
The dishonesty flowing from the McCain campaign is simply astonishing. After this disclosure it must be said that all the fury directed at the media, and the N.Y. Times in particular for following this story, is completely dishonest blather.
Remember, it was John McCain on 60 minutes who dared the media to dig into Davis' history with his own firm.
The McCain campaign: Dishonorable Liars.
[Update] Heres the Digg thanks to marabout40.
[Update 2] Several commenters have questioned why it is wrong for Davis to get paid for his services via his own company. Let me copy and paste Praxxus explanation from the comments:
This nixes their Freddie/Davis defense
They claim that Davis had "severed all ties" or "resigned from" --or whatever phrase du jour they choose-- Davis Manafort, so the payments aren't a conflict of interest and they are not liars for saying he wasn't involved in the Freddie Mac mess!
If Davis wasn't involved in, or deriving financial benefit from, Davis-Manafort at that time, why send the payments there? Specifically, why send payments to Davis-Manafort as compensation for workd done by Rick Davis?
I call, "Liar, liar, pants on fire!"