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John McCain: June 2008

Today's Must Read

Andrew Tilghman | June 26, 2008, 10:01AM

Sen. John McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, took leave from his lobbying firm in 2006. He often reminds us that he derives no income from the firm these days.

Yet Davis derived financial gain from his relationship with McCain for years after running the senator's first bid for the GOP nod in 2000 -- and would likely garner similar benefits even if McCain loses this time around.

A story in today's Washington Post offers some details about that relationship throughout the past eight years.

In all, Davis, his firm and a company he helped start have earned at least $2.2 million in part through their close association with McCain, his campaign and his causes, according to a review of federal campaign, tax and lobbyist disclosure records.

Davis's lobbying firm, Davis Manafort, has a client list that has included Verizon and SBC Communications, a Ukranian holding company Systems Capital Management and Russian magnate Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has also worked as an uregistered lobbyist representing the interests abroad of foreign politicians and businessmen.

After McCain dropped out of the Republican primary in 2000, Davis continued to work for -- and fundraise -- for the senator.

When McCain started the Reform Institute in 2001 to promote campaign finance reform, he turned to Davis. Though still actively lobbying, Davis pulled in $120,000 as an institute consultant in 2002.
Davis brought with him other McCain insiders, and fundraising took off. In 2003, tax filings show, Davis earned $110,000 in fees, and in 2004 and 2005, while he served as president of the institute, his salary totaled $165,000. Tax forms said he worked five hours a week or "as needed."

The Post profiles a few examples where Davis was raking in lobbying fees from companies that McCain was helping out on Capitol Hill.

In 2003, for instance, DHL Holdings (USA) and Airborne hired Davis to lobby the Senate to facilitate a merger. Hotly opposed by shipping giants FedEx and United Parcel Service, the merger encountered opposition from Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) on the commerce committee. McCain took steps that helped Davis's clients. He thwarted Stevens's effort to insert language into legislation that would prohibit foreign-controlled companies such as DHL from holding certain military contracts.

Davis's firm earned $125,000 from Airborne in 2003 and $465,000 from DHL parent company Deutsche Post World Net (USA) from 2003 to 2005, records show.

The Post also reminds us how Davis's outside business dealings have apparently caused tension inside the campaign, particularly last year when McCain was struggling with money and far behind in the polls. There was a lot of grumbling -- and still is -- about the firm 3eDC that Davis helped hire and also partly owned.

Davis has confirmed that he owns a stake in 3eDC. Over several months, McCain's campaign doled out payments to the firm approaching $1 million.
The 3eDC contract initially brought objections from top advisers, who argued that it smacked of self-dealing. After the summer campaign shake-up, it appeared that payments to the firm ceased.

Davis is not alone among those in the campaign who have recently shed their lobbying ties but may have banked some money in previous years.

Longtime fundraiser Carla Eudy earned $138,434 working for McCain's 2000 presidential bid. But she made far more -- $813,000 -- working for McCain's leadership committee, the Reform Institute, and another nonprofit McCain chaired, the International Republican Institute, tax records show. Some of the money has gone to her company. Trevor Potter, McCain's top lawyer, has brought in nearly $750,000 in fees for his law firms by working for such endeavors, as well as $949,000 in compensation over five years for the nonprofit he helped create, the Campaign Legal Center, which has defended in court the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, tax records show.
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Firms run by Rebecca Donatelli, McCain's Internet strategist in 2000, have since then done more than $700,000 in work for McCain-related endeavors, though the campaign notes that some of that money has gone to cover credit card transaction fees for money raised online.

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John McCain, Rick Davis

John McCain

McCain Still Hasn't Updated Adviser List

Andrew Tilghman | June 18, 2008, 3:59PM

After getting zinged for having a number of domestic and foreign lobbyists advising the candidate, the McCain campaign recently introduced
new campaign rules barring anyone currently employed as a lobbyist from serving on the campaign.

But they seem to have another new policy too: not telling anyone who the candidate's advisers are.

Until a couple weeks ago, JohnMcCain.com included a page with a long list of its advisers.

But they took it down right after TPM asked about an economic adviser who was linked to Jack Abramoff's lobbying scheme.

A McCain aide explained at the time that the list was outdated and did not reflect the new no-lobbyist rules that took effect in May. (Yes, the adviser we asked about, Carlos Bonilla, is both a lobbyist and a former White House official accused of taking favors from Abramoff's shop. He's no longer with the campaign, the aide said.)

We were curious about a handful of people with lobbying backgrounds who had been working for or advising the campaign. So we drew up a list and asked a McCain spokesman to tell us which ones remained with the campaign and which ones, like Bonilla, had been removed.

The spokesman refused to comment on the people individually and only reiterated the policy announced a few weeks ago, that no registered lobbyists work for the campaign and policy advisers can't be registered to lobby on issues they advise the campaign on.

It's been about a month since the campaign's new rules took effect, and the Web page we asked about is still blank.

When we asked today about the Web page that used to list advisers, the McCain aide told us they are "updating the page."

So how can anyone know who's on the McCain campaign, then?

The McCain spokesperson suggested that we go to the Federal Election Commission for information about staff and advisers.

Of course, that won't really tell us much. The FEC filings include expense records with outdated payroll payments for hundreds of campaign workers -- but without any indication of what the individuals actually do.

The McCain aide also responded: "Please show me a list of Obama campaign staff and advisers."

We asked the Obama campaign about that this morning and we haven't hear back from them. We'll let you know when we do.

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John McCain

Jack Abramoff

McCain Camp: Advisor Linked to Abramoff No Longer with Campaign

Andrew Tilghman | June 9, 2008, 2:01PM

John McCain's campaign has taken down a web page that listed lobbyist Carlos Bonilla as an economic advisor.

Bonilla, a former special assistant to the president for economic policy, was included in today's report about White House ties with Jack Abramoff as one of the White House officials who received tickets from convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff's firm.

A McCain aide said Bonilla was dropped from the campaign a few weeks ago when McCain implemented a tougher conflict-of-interest policy barring most active lobbyists from his team. Bonilla is a senior vice president with the Washington Group.

Campaign workers thought they had already removed the web page, the aide said. It was removed after the page was brought to the campaign's attention by TPMmuckraker.

Bonilla joined the McCain campaign in July 2007. He did not return a phone call for comment today.