Randy Scheunemann

Chalabi Spokesman: McCain Advisor Scheunemann Was "Close Friend."

Zachary Roth | July 31, 2008, 11:50AM

We already know that in the years just before the invasion of Iraq, Randy Scheunemann, now John McCain's top foreign policy aide, was part of the circle of advisors and operatives around Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who used bogus intelligence to sell the war. Over the last few days we've spoken to associates of Chalabi's and Scheunemann's from those years to fill out the picture of the working relationship between the two men.

Entifadh Qanbar, who worked for Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC) in Washington in 2001 and 2002, described Scheunemann to TPM as a "close friend....We exchanged thoughts, exchanged ideas. We would often meet, go for lunch." Qanbar said Scheuenemann was also very close with both Chalabi and Francis Brooke, a longtime Chalabi aide and spokesman. Qanbar said he believes it was Brooke who first connected Scheunemann to Chalabi and the INC.

In fact, said Qanbar, Scheunemann was so friendly with the INC crowd that when the INC moved out of the shabby office space that Qanbar had found at 918 Pennsylvania Avenue SE on Capitol Hill, Qanbar suggested to Scheunemann -- who at the time was looking for a cheap spot to house his new lobbying shop, Orion Strategies -- that Scheunemann take the place over. To this day, Orion HQ is at 918 Penn (though the McCain campaign has said Scheunemann suspended his activities there earlier this year). And that was also the address Scheunemann later used for the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), the group he founded in late 2002 to gin up public support for the war.

But the links between Chalabi's INC and Scheunemann's CLI may go even further. Here's a photo of a webpage from the INC site. But notice the web address at the bottom: http://liberationiraq.org. That's the address for the CLI. The picture was taken by the Washington journalist Jim Lobe, who blogged about it in May, and confirmed its authenticity to TPM. According to Lobe, in April 2003, he typed in the address for Scheunemann's group, and got the INC homepage. When he called CLI to ask why, Scheunemann "mumbled something about how both the CLI and the INC used the same server in London."

Scheunemann seems to have set out from the start to make himself useful to Chalabi. Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector, got a firsthand look at just how. Ritter told TPM that back in 1998, he came to Washington for a meeting with Scheunemann. Instead, Scheunemann sent him over to Chalabi's Georgetown townhouse, where Chalabi, Brooke, and a who's-who of Washington neoconservatives explained their half-baked plan to topple Saddam. The next day, Ritter did meet with Scheunemann, and shared with him a lab report that, Ritter believed, suggested Saddam was making chemical weapons (the intelligence proved to be flawed). Ritter asked Scheunemann to leak the report to the press, in order to put pressure on the Clinton administration and the UN to toughen their inspections. Scheunemann was more than happy to do so, says Ritter. But when, a short time later, The Washington Post ran a story on the lab report, the story was sourced to Chalabi's INC. Scheunemann, it seemed, had, without Ritter's permission, passed the intel on to Chalabi to leak, as a way of enhancing Chalabi's status, and currying favor with the INC leader. Ritter wrote about the incident in March.

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John McCain, Lobbyists, Randy Scheunemann

Randy Scheunemann

McCain Adviser's Horrifying Iraq Track Record: Will the Press Notice?

Zachary Roth | July 28, 2008, 5:08PM

Over the weekend, The New York Times noted that some of John McCain's foreign policy advisers from the "realist" camp are uneasy with the amount of influence enjoyed by neoconservatives like Randy Scheunemann, who's been serving as McCain's chief foreign policy aide and spokesman.

But it isn't only his internal rivals who have reason to worry about Scheunemann. Not only does he have McCain's ear, he also has a track record of being consistently wrong on the major foreign policy question of the day -- Iraq. Of all the hawkish Washington foreign-policy types pushing both before and after 9/11 for war with Iraq -- a war that an overwhelming majority of Americans now considers a mistake -- Scheunemann, though not a marquee name, was among the most energetic and influential. And in the invasion's aftermath, he consistently opposed steps that might have helped stabilize the country.

And yet, the political press has largely given McCain a pass on the fact that his top foreign policy adviser was at the center of perhaps the biggest strategic folly in our history.

Here, to refresh reporters' memories, is the rundown on Scheunemann's Iraq record:

• As a top aide to then-Senate GOP leader Trent Lott, Scheunemann helped draft -- and acted as a driving force behind -- the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act (ILA), which essentially made "regime change" the official Iraq policy of the US. The Act was cited as a key basis of support in the fateful 2002 Congressional resolution authorizing military force, and directly paved the way for President Bush's invasion.

• Scheunemann was a board member of Bill Kristol's Project for a New American Century, which played a major role in agitating for the war. Scheunemann signed Kristol's influential letter to President Bush, sent nine days after 9/11, which asserted that failing to respond to the Al Qaeda attack by going after Saddam would "constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism." Scheunemann also served as a "consultant" to Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon while it was planning the war. And in late 2002, Scheunemann, with administration approval, founded the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), an advocacy group with the explicit goal of whipping up pro-war sentiment across the country.

• Scheunemann was a crucial Washington backer of Ahmad Chalabi, the now-disgraced Iraqi exile who helped feed the CIA false intelligence on Saddam's WMD program and has since been accused of giving US state secrets to Iran. In the years leading up to the invasion, the two were so tight that the spokesman for Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress shared a Washington address with both CLI and Scheunemann's private lobbying firm and Scheunemann was mentioned in press reports as a candidate for the job of formal envoy to the Iraqi opposition. During this period, Scheunemann, who acted as a crucial link between Chalabi and John McCain, was a go-to guy for reporters seeking pro-Chalabi quotes. He told The New York Times that Chalabi possessed "tremendous attributes that would be of immeasurable benefit to an Iraq in transition to democracy" and separately called him "an Iraqi patriot."

• Like other war supporters, Scheunemann threw caution to the wind in declaring, wrongly, that Saddam had WMD. "There is no doubt Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction," he assured Americans a month before the invasion.

• Scheunemann also played a key role in lining up support for the invasion from the "Vilnius Ten," a group of former Soviet bloc countries seeking to gain entry to NATO, some of whom Scheunemann has worked as a paid lobbyist on behalf of. With his partner Bruce Jackson, a Lockheed Martin executive, Scheunemann reportedly gave assurances to the Ten that backing the invasion would help their chances for NATO membership. Ultimately, seven of the ten countries gained entry to NATO, and two of those, Romania and Latvia, employed Scheunemann as a paid lobbyist to promote their applications.

• In the invasion's aftermath, Scheunemann's judgment proved no more effective. He argued vociferously against giving the UN a significant role in stabilizing Iraq. And he also opposed leaving any members of Saddam's Baath party in government positions, declaring: "It is very difficult for me to conceive of democratic institutions being established in Iraq with the Baathist power structure mostly intact." Both of these positions, of course, proved to be disastrous policy blunders, which badly damaged our ability to stabilize Iraq in the crucial early months.

It's kind of astonishing that McCain continues to be taken seriously on Iraq when his closest adviser has a track record on the issue as atrocious as Scheunemann's. At the very least, when reporters hang up from their frequent conference calls, arranged by the McCain campaign, in which Scheunemann attacks Barack Obama's judgment on Iraq, they might want to keep Scheunemann's own history on the subject in mind.

Late Update: We wrote above, based on a 2004 report in The Los Angeles Times, that the spokesman for Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress shared a Washington address with both CLI and Scheunemann's private lobbying firm. But Entifadh Qanbar, who worked for the INC at the time, told TPM that Scheunemann took over the office space from the INC when the INC moved into new digs.

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John McCain, Randy Scheunemann

John McCain

Sheunemann Helped Pakistan Get In Good Favor With U.S.

Andrew Tilghman | July 24, 2008, 4:25PM

A story in the New York Times today reports that the U.S. is planing to buy a new fleet of F-16 jet fighters for Pakistan.

Apparently the Bush administration wants to use nearly $230 million in "counter-terrorism money." That's an awfully broad definition of counter terrorism.

Nevertheless, the report underscores how U.S. relations with Pakistan have come around 180 degrees since Sept. 11, 2001, when the U.S. still had harsh words and economic sanctions for the country that had tested a nuclear bomb in 1998. Back then we used to consider President Pervez Musharraf a military dictator who'd overthrown a democratically elected government.

It was a small team of lobbyists who helped lead Pakistan back into our good graces. We told you last week that Stephen Payne was among them. And we were reminded this week that Randy Scheunemann, Sen. John McCain's top foreign policy adviser, was also helping out a few years ago, too.

Scheunemann was head of the two-man lobbying shop called Orion Strategies back in 2002 when they signed on to lobby for International Business & Energy Development Corp., a firm run by Payne.

According to lobbying disclosure reports, Scheunemann was "monitoring" a bill providing assistance to Pakistan.

Specifically, the bill -- which ultimately passed -- said any law that "prohibits direct assistance to a country whose duly elected head of government was deposed by decree or military coup shall not apply with respect to Pakistan."

These days, Scheunemann likes to talk tough about dealing with the "situation" in Pakistan.

Between 2001 and 2003, Scheunemann's firm was paid about $80,000 for its work for International Business & Energy Development Corp, lobbying disclosure reports show.

Scheunemann stopped working for Payne on Pakistan-related issues in 2003, according to Senate lobbing disclosure reports.

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John McCain, Randy Scheunemann, Stephen Payne

Stephen Payne

McCain Adviser Tied To Bush Library Schemer Through Latvian Lobby

Andrew Tilghman | July 23, 2008, 3:30PM

Sen. John McCain's campaign has admitted that his top foreign policy adviser has lobbied for not two but three different firms run by cash-for-access deal-maker Stephen Payne.

But the McCain camp insists that Randy Scheunemann did not lobby McCain himself on "any issues relating to" Stephen Payne.

That might come as a relief to McCain supporters, since Payne was caught on video a few weeks ago telling a Kazakh politician he could set up high-level meetings at the White House in exchange for big donations to the future George W. Bush Presidential Library fund.

But is it true?

Let's go back to 2001. That's when Scheunemann and Payne first met, according to the McCain camp.

Scheunemann was lobbying on behalf of the government of Latvia. Latvia was seeking entry into NATO. And McCain was among the lawmakers he targeted. In fact, Scheunemann and McCain both traveled to Latvia in August 2001, where McCain met with an slew of Latvian officials and talked about NATO expansion and U.S. policy with Sheunemann, according to lobbying documents filed with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Reader DG points out that it was just a few days later that McCain announced his support for the Baltic country's admission into NATO. (It was granted admission in 2004)

And what was Stephen Payne doing in Latvia?

According to his own firms' documents, a lot. One brochure said Payne's firm, Worldwide Strategic Partners, "led Lavia's efforts to become a NATO member." Another for his related firm, Worldwide Strategic Energy, said the same thing.

Payne has been Latvia's "honorary consul" in Texas, which is among the many business activities he conducts from the same office address in suburban Houston.

It looks like Payne and Scheunemann were on the same side of the issue, trying to convince people like McCain and other U.S. lawmakers to back Latvia's bid for NATO membership.

Payne doesn't always register his work for foreign countries in the Department of Justice database maintained under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The McCain camp told us that Sheunemann and Payne met in Latvia in 2001. How exactly did they meet? Were they working together? Did McCain at any point meet Payne? Those are some of the questions we've asked the campaign. We'll let you know if and when they get back to us.

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John McCain, Stephen Payne

Stephen Payne

McCain Camp Plays Down Foreign Policy Adviser's Links To Cash-For-Access Dealmaker

Andrew Tilghman | July 21, 2008, 7:12PM

John McCain's campaign responds to the AP regarding McCain aide Randy Scheunemann's previous work with Stephen Payne, the guy caught on video offering to set up meetings with White House officials in exchange for big donations to the George W. Bush Presidential Library fund.

The AP reports:

On Monday, the McCain campaign said that from 2002 to 2006, Scheunemann periodically engaged in consulting relationships with the two companies and that Scheunemann was never on the payroll of either firm, but that he was an occasional outside expert consultant.

Scheunemann did not lobby on any specific legislation on behalf of Worldwide Strategic Partners, said McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers.

In regard to Caspian Alliance, Scheunemann arranged several informational meetings for Payne with Department of State and NSC officials following Caspian energy issues, but Scheunemann did not lobby on specific legislation or projects, said Rogers.

Scheunemann did not lobby McCain on Caspian energy issues or any other issue related to Payne, the McCain campaign spokesman added.

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John McCain, Stephen Payne

Stephen Payne

Homeland Security Adviser Offering Cash-For-Access Deal Worked With McCain's Foreign Policy Adviser

Andrew Tilghman | July 21, 2008, 3:55PM

Before last week, we'd never heard of Worldwide Strategic Partners and Stephen Payne, the (former) Homeland Security adviser who was caught on video soliciting big donations for the future George W. Bush Presidential Library fund while offering to arrange access to top White House officials.

But Randy Scheunemann, Sen. John McCain's top foreign policy adviser, has known him -- and been working with his business associates -- for years.

Worldwide Strategic Partners was one of Scheunemann's lobbying clients back in 2002, when Scheunemann worked for the lobbying firm Orion.

And more recently, Scheunemann was lobbying for a group called the Caspian Alliance. That group was one of Scheunemann's four registered lobbying clients in 2005 and 2006, and paid him a total of $40,000.

The Caspian Alliance was formed by Payne's business associate, Houston lawyer Brian Ettinger, to "specialize in pushing the interests and advising American oil groups active in the former Soviet republics that overlook the Caspian Sea (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan)," according to a 2006 report in the Paris-based Intelligence Online, which we found in the Nexis news database.

Ettinger has worked with Payne at Worldwide Strategic Partners along with other ventures and currently shares office space with Payne at the firm's Houston office.

And the Caspian Alliance uses the same Houston address as Payne's Worldwide Strategic Partners on lobbying forms filed with the Senate.

One lobbying form for the Caspian Alliance lists several people working on its behalf, including including Ettinger, Payne's former business partner Gary Polland and Ari Storch with Artemis Strategies.

Payne is among the founders of Atremis Strategies, a lobbying firm which has had a partnership with the Caspian Alliance. Artemis Strategies was founded in 2003 by Payne, Ettinger and others including Timothy F. Powers, formerly deputy director of the Republican National Committee's congressional affairs and strategic planning operation and member of the Bush-Cheney transition team, according to a March 13, 2003 report in the Washington Post.

Payne was recently caught bragging about his close ties with Scheunemann, according to the Times of London. The British newspaper took an undercover video of Payne talking to a Kazakh politician about a potential deal. On the tape, Payne said Scheunemann has been "working with me on my payroll for five of the last eight years," according to a report in the Times.

The Times described the Caspian Alliance as a "subsidiary" of Worldwide Strategic Energy, of which Payne is also president. TPMmuckraker found that many of the same people are involved with both the Caspian Alliance and Worldwide Strategic Partners, but could not independently verify the nature of the relationship between the two firms.

A reporter for the blog Majikthise apparently obtained a 44-page document from Worldwide Strategic Energies that featured Scheunemann prominently, including the above photo. The reporter, Lindsay Beyerstein, said the document was a prospectus distributed to potential investors and listed Schuenemann among the firm's executive team, along with Major General Lincoln Jones III, a former executive at Enron.

The Times also said it obtained a similar document.

Neither the McCain campaign nor Worldwide Strategic Partners responded to requests for comment today.

Late Update: The McCain campaign responded late Monday.

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John McCain, Stephen Payne

John McCain

McCain's Moneyraiser Worked For Mariana Islands

Andrew Tilghman | July 18, 2008, 5:41PM

We told you yesterday about the ties between one of John McCain's top fundraisers and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Well, there's more. Looks like Juan Carlos Benitez was helping Abramoff out with efforts to lobby for the Northern Mariana Islands.

Remember that storyline? The U.S. territory's local government hired Abramoff (and Benitez as well, we've learned) to help fend of criticism of the massive sweatshop industry on the islands.

Those sweatshops were especially lucrative -- and controversial -- because they allowed big-name companies to use a "Made in the USA" tag," even though they are filled with low-paid immigrants from across Asia.

Workers from China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, were working below the local minimum wage, often seven days a week and up to 12 hours a day while living in shacks behind barbed wire and without plumbing, according to congressional testimony.

Let's look at the timeline -- we know that back in 2001 Benitez landed his big job (pdf) over at the Department of Justice with the help of a recommendation from Abramoff.

Specifically, the job Abramoff steered him into at DOJ was Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices. That's the office in charge of -- guess what? -- prosecuting sweatshop owners.

"This position gave Benitez authority over enforcing provisions of ... alleged unfair employment practices, issues of importance to Abramoff clients such as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands," according to a 2006 Congressional report (pdf).

In 2002, Abramoff's firm took in $600,000 in lobbying fees from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Efforts to crackdown on the sweatshops there stalled.

Benitez left the DOJ in 2003 and went to work for Cassidy and Associates, a top Washington lobbying firm. Within months -- by 2004 -- Benitez had registered to lobby for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Also in 2004, Abramoff went to work for Cassidy and Associates. But he soon left, as his name began popping up in news reports about corruption investigations.

So where did Benitez and Abramoff meet?

We're not sure, but it may have been in the late 1990s, when Abramoff was lobbying for a group called Future of Puerto Rico, Inc. which was pushing for a congressional vote on Puerto Rican statehood.

At the same time, Benitez was the legislative director for the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration in Washington.

Yesterday McCain announced that Benitez has bundled between $50,000 and $100,000 for his campaign. Maybe that's not massive money for today's campaigns, but it's interesting since McCain used to be talk so much about Abramoff and corrupt lobbyists. He doesn't do that as much anymore.

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Jack Abramoff, John McCain

John McCain

McCain's Education Adviser Was Accused Of Mismanaging Money

Andrew Tilghman | July 17, 2008, 1:06PM

Lisa Graham Keegan, one of Sen. John McCain's top education advisers, is a forceful proponent of school vouchers and other market-based education policies.

But when it comes to managing money herself, she doesn't have a great track record.

Keegan was among four education advisers the McCain camp trotted out yesterday in a conference call with reporters to explain McCain's new education policy.

Nobody on the call asked her about her stint as CEO of the Education Leaders Council, a conservative non-profit, school-reform group that she led from 2001 to 2004.

With Keegan at the helm, the group began to prosper with money from Bush's No Child Left Behind law. The ELC raked in about $23.4 million in federal money, part of which it was later accused of mismanaging. An audit report(pdf) from the Department of Education's Inspector General ultimately recommended that the group give back about $500,000 in taxpayer dollars.

A large chunk of the earmarks and federal grants the group received were for a program to help schools with technological upgrades and getting curriculum in line with Bush's No Child Left Behind law.

Money management under Keegan became a source of tension when an internal audit in 2003 found Keegan was being paid a $235,000-a-year consulting fee and one of her aides from Arizona was paid $200,000 under a similar contract, according to an April 4, 2004 report in the Arizona Republic.

At least four board members out of 18 resigned shortly after the internal audit, according to the newspaper.

The Department of Education eventually got involved and concluded that the groups books were a mess with "weak or non-existent internal controls" that led to money spent on things not legally covered by the grant.

According to the audit (pdf):

Also, included in the questioned amounts were costs for alcoholic beverages, advertising, fundraising, and interest that are specifically unallowable under applicable cost principles.

A spokesman for McCain did not respond to a request for comment.

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John McCain

Jack Abramoff

Big McCain Fundraiser Has Abramoff Connection

Kate Klonick | July 17, 2008, 10:00AM

After perusing the Fundraising Disclosure filed by John McCain's camp yesterday, one particular name jumped out: Juan Carlos Benitez, a lobbyist, lawyer, and Jack Abramoff recommendation to a top post at the Justice Department.

Benitez was appointed as Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices in 2001, where he strongly supported former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales-- even after the firings of the eight U.S. Attorneys had been made public.

According the the disclosure, Benitez has raised raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Sen. McCain's bid for the presidency.

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Jack Abramoff, John McCain

John McCain

John McCain's Lobbyist Universe

Kate Klonick | July 4, 2008, 1:22PM

There's been a lot of talk in the last few weeks and months about John McCain's ties to lobbyists. So here at TPMmuckraker, we decided to do a little digging to officially catalog the possibilities. What we came up with, we fondly call "John McCain's Lobbyist Universe," a working guide to the presidential hopeful's connections. Click on each of the familiar faces to get a synopsis of their role in the campaign and their lobbyist ties. We expect to be growing and expanding this chart as more facts come in, and as always we welcome any tips or knowledge that you, our readers, have to offer.

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John McCain, Lobbyists

John McCain

Today's Must Read

Andrew Tilghman | July 3, 2008, 10:05AM

The "Swift Boaters" from 2004 are back at it.

A group of top Republican contributors who financially fueled the famous "Swift Boat" campaign ads that helped sink Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign back in 2004 are starting to regroup.

A story in today's Wall Street Journal reports on new Republican efforts to circumvent the landmark campaign finance laws named after their top candidate -- the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002.

The GOP is raising tons of cash for the Republican Governors Association, which is a so-called 527 group and permits donors to exceed the $2,300 individual cap that applies to presidential campaigns. Although these groups are barred from soliciting money for presidential candidates, the association is telling prospective contributors that money for the association will ultimately help out McCain at the top of the ticket.

Of course the association's fund is getting cash from big corporations like Pfizer, Bank of America Corp. and Travelers, which have given $150,000 or more. But that's not the main target of this fundraising effort.

Rather, the pitch is aimed at individuals, including many top contributors to the controversial Swift Boat group that targeted Sen. Kerry. Texas developer Bob Perry, the largest financial backer of the Swift Boat group, also is the largest individual donor to the governors group, at $250,000. Carl Lindner, a retired insurance executive in Ohio and another top Swift Boat financier, has contributed $100,000 to the governors' fund. The campaign-finance lawyer for the Swift Boat group in 2004 now serves the same role for the governors association. The McCain campaign and the individual contributors all declined to comment on their involvement.

Yet the whole situation is dubiously legal. In 2005 the Federal Election Commission banned such groups from soliciting donations by pledging help to a federal candidate. Even the McCain camp questions the pitch tactics.

"If it is in fact telling its donors their money will help elect McCain they are being inaccurate," said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers, told the Journal, noting the group cannot legally attempt to sway a federal race. But he said that because he had not yet seen evidence the group is campaigning on Sen. McCain's behalf, "It's not an issue."

We'll have to wait and see what kind of ads the association actually runs. But so far, they've seen a big uptick in donations, raking in $14 million during the first half of this year, compared to $3 million for the Democratic governors' group.

The governor's association is unique among the so-called 527 groups. Like its Democratic counterpart, it is the only 527 set up by the national party.

The McCain camp is also trying out some other tactics to get around McCain's 2002 law and rake in more money to match Sen. Barack Obama's massive money machine, according to the Journal.

They're leveraging a technique that establishes a joint fund-raising account allowing donors write checks for up to $70,100. The campaign pulled in $3 million for the fund in a matter of days in June.

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John McCain, Lobbyists