McCain campaign continues to obscure the record on Scheunemann and Payne

Last night, I reported that top McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann lobbied for International Business & Energy Development Corp--a firm tied to Stephen Payne, the disgraced Republican operative caught offering access to top Bush administration officials in exchange for donations to the G.W. Bush Library.

This afternoon, the AP echoed this claim. However, the correspondent left key assertions by the McCain camp unchallenged.

Scheunemann has had no business relationship with Payne since July 2006 and has no knowledge of Payne's business activities since that time, the McCain campaign said.

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.

Scheunemann provided general advice to IBEDC on attitudes in Washington on international energy issues, but did not advocate positions for or against specific pieces of legislation, the campaign said. [AP]

The McCain camp is parsing its statements about Scheunemann ever more finely. On Monday, the campaign didn't even disclose the IBEDC tie. Today, perhaps confronted with the evidence unearthed by Majikthise, they've admitted that Scheunemann was engaged as a lobbyist to monitor a specific piece of legislation on behalf of a Payne company, but they're stressing that it wasn't Scheunemann's job to help or hinder that bill. This is a distinction without a difference.

Here's one of Scheunemann's IBEDC lobbying forms, for your reference. As you can see, in 2002, Scheunemann and his colleague Mike Mitchell registered to lobby the House, the Senate, the Department of Defense, the State Department, and the National Security Council on S 1465, a bill authorizing the President to provide assistance to Pakistan and India through September 30, 2003. Note that a WSE corporate brochure and other documents tout the firm's success in obtaining perks for Pakistan.

The point is that Randy Scheunemann worked for Stephen Payne in multiple capacities over many years. We know he lobbyied for at least three of Payne's firms. Moreover, Scheunemann was a member of the executive team of Payne's Worldwide Strategic Energy (WSE)--a firm whose official business model is to proffer geopolitical favors for "politically complicated" dictatorships in exchange for good deals on oil and gas leases.

Public records from 2001, 2002, and 2003 show that Scheunemann personally lobbied Senator McCain and his staffers (including Mark Salter) on behalf of Latvia and Romania, especially on the subject of NATO expansion. These records also suggest that Scheunemann helped coordinate a McCain trip to Latvia.

Stephen Payne is an honorary proconsul of Latvia and the WSE brochure hypes the firm's influence in that country.

We also know that Scheunemann lobbied the McCain campaign on behalf of another client while he was working for McCain '08. Whether Scheunemann lobbied members of the McCain campaign on Payne's behalf while working for McCain '08 is beside the point.

Scheunemann is McCain's top adviser on foreign policy and national security. He was, and may still be, an executive at a petro-influence peddling firm run by someone who brokers cash-for-access deals with foreign nationals.

The McCain campaign may have misled the public about Scheunemann's tenure as a WSE executive. The campaign spokesman told the AP that Scheunemann has had no business relationship with Payne since 2006.

Does Scheunemann expect us to believe that he had no idea that WSE was hyping him as the executive who sold the Iraq war? WSE circulated a pre-prospectus in 2007 that prominently featured Scheunemann's bio, and image (posed with Payne and Ahmed Chalabi, no less).

The McCain camp still hasn't said whether Scheunemann's firm, Orion Strategies, still does work for Payne or any of his concerns. Scheunemann was president of Orion until March 1, 2008. It is not clear whether he retains any financial interest in the company. Records show that Orion continues to handle many of the same foreign accounts that Scheunemann worked on.

Randy Scheunemann's ties to the influence peddler Stephen Payne are too deep, too longstanding, and too numerous for the McCain camp to waive away. 

[Original reporting, please credit Lindsay Beyerstein.]

Comments

[swampcracker]

Well done !!

[amazingdrx]

Yep, great work. I think Olbermann ought to have a blogger on his show, every night. Just like you! or you, which would be even better. Hehey.

[Bakinets]

Nice job, keep up the good work. Amid all these detials let's focus on the most shocking thing: Kazakhstan used its state oil company to pay Payne's firm (with which Scheunemann had a contractual relationship) $2 million to get Dick Cheney to come to Almaty. And that visit was in May 2006 when even the McCain campaign admits Scheunemann was working with Payne. I suspect he was on the plane with Cheney, which was filled with other DC types who lobby for Central Asian dictators.