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Investor Document Says Payne Was Key Bush Campaign Operative
We've gotten a hold of a new document from Worldwide Strategic Energy, one of the numerous firms run by Stephen Payne.
We've been writing a lot about Payne since he was caught on video offering to arrange meetings with high-level Bush administration officials conditioned on big donations to the future George W. Bush Presidential Library fund.
This 44-page document, which was previously obtained by the Times of London and the blog Majikthise, was distributed to investors about two years ago and outlines the people involved with Worldwide Strategic Energy and how they planned to make money.
Payne is listed as the president and chief executive officer and touts some connections to the Bush administration that we hadn't heard before.
Spending hundreds of days on the road for the Bush/Cheney Campaign in 2000 and 2004, Mr. Payne was part of a small team of five Bush operatives, including former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, who coordinated the campaigns' efforts for the three Presidential debates held that year.
The document includes a photo, above, showing Payne in traditional Kazakh garb alongside Timur Kulibayev, a billionaire and chairman of the board for KazMunaiGaz, the Kazakh oil and gas company (Kulibayev is also the Kazakh president's son-in-law), and Togrul Baglrov, executive vice president with the Moscow International Petroleum Club.
This particular document also offers some insight into what Payne and his business partners do. In short, they go into politically unstable countries and forge political deals for leasing the rights to drill for oil or natural gas. Once those deals are secured, they form "joint ventures with developing and drilling companies."
It's big money they are looking for:
In order to begin our lease acquisition phase of operations, WSE is seeking an Angel Investor round of funding of between $3,000,000 and $5,000,000.
If successful, investors can expect a massive return for the expected 20-year lifespan of a well, the document says. One example suggests a total of $773 million in total revenue (and that's calculated with oil at $50 a barrel).
The document is not dated, but appears to be no older than March 2006, based on its sources and references.
There are big players involved, according to this document.
One is a current White House official. Bush appointed Spencer E. Geissinger last year as Deputy Assistant to the President for Advance and Operations. Geissinger also served in a similar White House position under President George H.W. Bush as a Special Assistant to the President for Advance.
For Payne's firm, Geissinger is listed as an "advisory board member." A call to Geissinger's White House office was not immediately returned.
The firm Bracewell and Giulinai, which includes the former New York City mayor and has an office in Kazakhstan, is listed as the "Outside Strategic and Legal Counsel." A spokeswoman for the international law firm has not responded to our request for further information.
And, in keeping with our reporting from yesterday, the document also lists Sen. John McCain's top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, among its "executive team." The McCain camp responded yesterday.
Josh Crescenzi is also reported to have worked with the White House advance team under the current President Bush. For Worldwide Strategic Energy, Crescenzi is listed as a "Vice President, Administration and Controller." Crescenzi did not return a call for comment.
Like I've been saying FOR YEARS, it all comes back to the ADVANCE OFFICE at the White House.
The Advance Office was one of Karl Rove's portfolio.
It was the Advance Office that had an official policy (written in an official manual) to keep possible "dissidents" out of taxpayer-funded events.
It was the Advance Office that produced the "Mission Accomplished" banner.
It is the Advance Office that was the source of endless "overzealous volunteers" creating mischief and taking missteps, as if on cue.
It is the Advance Office who has used the services of various lobbyists Robbie Aiken, Stephen P Payne, Steven G Ross, Spencer E Gessinger, Josh Crescenzi.
They've all got Official or Diplomatic passports, These are the people the White House has chosen to represent you abroad!
July 22, 2008 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
You see, when a President, Vice President or First Lady travels anywhere (but particularly overseas) the Advance Team takes charge.
The politicals in the White House select their favored loyal "volunteers" to do this work. It provides extraordinary access.
International White House travel is paid for by the State Department - and the WH will usually send between 12-15 people to coordinate each city (we're only talking political staff here, not the Secret Service or the military).
Anyway, these lucky travelers get to meet and negotiate all the President's comings and goings. The official state functions. The meetings with businessmen. All of it. They make extraordinaty contacts while doing "the government's work" and then clearly go back and use those contacts for their own business purposes. Why else would you have lobbyists trying to fill the shoes of "event managers?"
And taxpayers are paying for it all. This, my friends, has been the back door for the last 7 years. And Stephen Payne left it WIDE open.
July 22, 2008 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here is something the advanced office can do now, start calling your lawyers!!!Second, start picking which jail cell you would like!!
July 22, 2008 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a repeated theme in the documents....
1) Most of the people working for this organization are from Texas.
2) Most of the people are working in the energy business.
So, my question is:
>Are these the same people who were on the list who visited the United States VP back in 2000/01, which was never released to the public?
>Are the dots starting to connect more clearly - on how the "echo" of drilling is being propagandized toward the American Tax payer, is this group behind this?
>Why and how has "Ex-Mayor of New York - Rudy" involvement..What is his current role or past role in this pyramid scam.
There are more questions, AGAIN, with the deceptions that have foster big bucks at the Tax payers expense...when will we learn ALL of the scams WE have been lied to.
July 22, 2008 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
From the document here are advanceman John Crescenzi's qualifications:
"He is specialized in economic forecasting, energy issues, employment trends for the Department of the Treasury, Office of Economic Policy."
Let's see. Economy in the tank. Energy prices sky-high. Unemployment sky-high.
Wonder if John forecast those trends while he was at Treasury?
July 22, 2008 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Holy shit. I am left wordless.
July 22, 2008 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tip of the fucking texas iceberg here...but the MSM won't follow this story; far too heady for them to be reporting on!
July 22, 2008 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
one must look for news that you hear beyond the blogs.
Check out the web site below...
http://www.democracynow.org/
July 22, 2008 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Curt Weldon!
According to the WSE offering, Stephen Payne is an advisor to Itera.
Togrul Bagirov, WSE advisor, is executive vice-president of the Moscow International Petroleum Club. As we learned from Ken Silverstein last week, the MIPC paid for some of the Weldon family's excellent $23k Russian-Serbian-Austria vacation in 1/03.
Adil Bagirov, WSE advisor, was Rep. Curt Weldon's "special advisor" on Russia and the Soviet Union. Bagirov organized Russian voters in Philadelphia for the '04 Bush-Cheney campaign. (That's a worry!)
Shiv Khempka, WSE advisor, is a director of SUN Group, an Indian company that owns, among other things, InBev. InBev just bought Anheuser-Busch, making Cindy McCain more wealthy. I believe SUN Energy has a stake in Itera or is a partner in a joint venture.
Those "example" contracts sure are interesting, too.
A big thanks to the London Times.
July 23, 2008 1:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mrs P:
You speculated in 2006 that Enron had ties to Itera. Any more evidence ever come through?
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6553.html
The GOP seems to have been absolutely knocking itself out in the quest to gain various footholds in Eastern Block energy companies.
Abramoff was working shady Naftasib.
Weldon (and Congressman CW "Bill" Young, his daughter and possibly Enron) working Itera.
Stephen Payne seems to be working everyone.
Refinery Associates of Texas, a 3-person shop based in New Braunfels, TX recently bought the Albanian state oil company (Albania is a huge US ally coveted by the current Administration). Refinery Associates also recently landed a $400m contract to supply fuel to DoD in Iraq.
And you've got T. Boone Pickens going gaga over wind energy - and various political figures in Iowa (Bruce Reastetter, etc) as well.
July 23, 2008 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
C92,
What a coincidence! I was just thinking about doing an Enron post. This stuff about the price of oil being driven by legitimate trading reminds me of being told in 2001 that the skyrocketing cost of electricity in California was the result of poor state government decisions about deregulation.
As we quietly found out later, Enron and Reliant Energy were running an illegal trading program and rigging the power grid. $11 billion of Californian money vanished in a matter of months and no one went to jail for it.
The more we learn about "cooperation" between global energy companies, the more convinced I am that oil prices are being manipulated. Collusion might be the better word.
Re Itera - I suspect that people linked to Enron, rather than Enron itself, might have been involved in Itera early on. Makarov, Itera chairman, has said that there were US investors in the company but he claims that they are all gone now.
In 2002 or 2003, I came across the Itera website accidentally. I was curious about Itera because the website was really cheesy for a company that claimed to have $3 billion in sales.
The story is that Itera was formed with Gazprom assets sold cheap by bribed Gazprom execs.
Itera was registered in Florida in 1993 and has maintained offices in Jacksonville since then. Then, James A. Baker was running around the world, making big deals and big bucks. He was also an Enron consultant.
Why would a Russian energy company with shady operations want to do business in the US? For one, a US address makes it easier for those who have to be politically sensitive to invest in a Russian entity.
Two, a US presence would be desirable for an initial public offering which makes me think Itera was being advised financially by US bankers. The problem taking Itera public is that its operations are not at all transparent.
More to come.
July 24, 2008 2:10 AM | Reply | Permalink