McCain Camp Tying Obama To ACORN

Zachary Roth | October 10, 2008, 5:39PM

The McCain campaign is stepping up its efforts to make an issue out of ACORN's voter registration activities -- and one of its new moves is to tie Barack Obama to the beleaguered community organizing group.

On a conference call with reporters this afternoon, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis raised the specter of massive voter fraud enabling an Obama victory November 4th.

"We don't want to see battleground states turn on ACORN," he said. "We want to make sure not one of these states are (sic) stolen."

Davis continued: "You don't file fake registrations if you're not going to use them to cast fake ballots."

There's little backing to support that contention. According to experts, false registrations almost never result in fraudulent votes, but rather are the result of canvassers artificially juicing their numbers in order to earn a bigger bonus. Tony Romo, for instance, is highly unlikely to try to show up to vote in Las Vegas.

So it bears repeating: despite reports in several swing states that ACORN has submitted fraudulent registration forms in the hundreds, and even perhaps the thousands, there's scant evidence that the group's lapses could significantly affect the integrity of the vote.

But for the McCain campaign, the point of touting the ACORN story is in part to tag Obama as tied to a supposedly radical, lawless community organization that works on behalf of minorities.

Davis noted that Obama had acted as a lawyer for ACORN, and had taught classes to ACORN community organizers. He also asserted that the Obama campaign had paid $800,000 to an ACORN subsidiary to canvass voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas during the primary.

Those claims are all technically true, though they deliberately exaggerate the closeness of the relationship between Obama and ACORN.

Davis also pointed reporters to a website, obamaacorntree.com, detailing the connections between the two.

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Topics: ACORN, Barack Obama, Rick Davis, Voting

John McCain

Two NRA Lobbyists Working for McCain; Do They Violate Campaign Rules?

Kate Klonick | September 25, 2008, 12:46PM

Looks like Rick Davis isn't the only lobbyist problem the McCain camp is dealing with these days.

Mother Jones reports that two actively-registered lobbyists are currently working on John McCain's campaign for president.

Wayne Berman, co-chairs McCain's national finance committee. James Jay Baker co-steers McCain's National Steering Committee of Sportsmen for McCain. Both work for the lobbying firm, Ogilvy Government Relations as managing directors.

This month, the NRA -- a client of Baker and Berman's -- launched attack ads against Barack Obama. MoJo points out that besides conflicting with McCain's claims for running a straight-shooting, non-lobbyist campaign, Berman and Baker's presence also could come into conflict with the actual campaign rules that banned active lobbyists from working full time for the campaign, or participating in 527s or groups that "oppose any presidential candidate."

From Mother Jones:

Asked whether he might be in violation of the campaign's conflict rules, Berman told Mother Jones, "Hmmm, I hadn't thought of that." He said he was currently lobbying for the NRA but not involved in the group's campaign activities. "I'm in full compliance with campaign policy," he maintained. "I will check over there....I will continue to be in compliance. If that requires me to make changes, I'll make them." He added, "You've done me a favor" by raising this issue.

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Topics: John McCain, Lobbyists, Rick Davis

Bailout

Davis Still an Officer at Lobbying Firm, Docs Show

Zachary Roth | September 25, 2008, 11:15AM

We knew we hadn't seen the last news report on McCain campaign manager Rick Davis' ongoing ties to the lobby firm he founded, Davis Manafort.

Newsweek has taken a look at annual filings made by the company to the Virginia state government. Those filings, the most recent of which is from April of this year, list Davis as one of two officers and directors of the firm.

As the magazine notes, that information suggests that in recent days, the campaign "appear[s] to have overstated the extent to which Davis had severed his relationship with his lobbying firm." A statement posted on the McCain campaign website by a spokesman Wednesday morning -- in response to reports that Davis's firm was being paid by the home-loan giant Freddie Mac as recently as this month -- asserted that Davis "separated from his consulting firm, Davis Manafort, in 2006." And a campaign spokeswoman wrote in an email to Newsweek Tuesday that Davis "left" the firm that year.

Of course, the fact that someone is listed as an officer on a corporate filing doesn't prove that he was involved in the day-to-day running of the company during the period in question. But Newsweek's find will certainly keep the heat on Davis, who yesterday skipped lunch with reporters, at a time when McCain would prefer the focus to be on his own efforts, belated and vainglorious as they may be, to help avoid a financial meltdown.

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Topics: Bailout, John McCain, Rick Davis

John McCain

Questions Linger on McCain Campaign Manager Tied To Freddie Mac

Zachary Roth | September 24, 2008, 5:10PM

Last night, The New York Times -- followed by a slew of other outlets -- reported that the lobbying firm of Rick Davis, John McCain's campaign manager, has been collecting $15,000 from mortgage giant Freddie Mac. On Monday, The Times had reported that Davis had been paid to run Freddie Mac's advocacy group, the Homeowner's Alliance, until 2005.

But there's a set of questions that still remain unanswered.

The McCain campaign told the Times that Davis had stopped taking a salary from the firm, Davis-Manafort, by the end of 2006. (Davis took a leave of absence from the firm to work on the campaign.) But the Times points out that, as an equity holder, Davis continues to benefit from his firm's income.

But it's unclear exactly what the Times means by that.

Let's stipulate, first of all, that since Davis is an equity holder, he has a long-term interest in Davis-Manafort's success. The McCain camp hasn't disputed that.

But could Davis be benefiting in a more direct sense?

For instance, could Davis' agreement with Davis-Manafort allow for his share of profits to simply be deferred until he rejoins the firm? Nothing that the McCain camp has said on the subject -- including this lengthy response to the Times story from the campaign's in-house blogger -- has ruled that possibility out.

We also know that in 2007, the McCain campaign did not have Davis on the payroll, and was paying Davis Manafort for "consulting" services. Did none of that money make its way back to Davis?

It's also worth noting that the McCain camp hasn't offered any backing for its claim that Davis did indeed stop getting paid by his firm in 2006. The campaign declined a request from TPMmuckraker to provide such backing.

The bottom line is that none of the reports have fully fleshed out Davis' relationship worth Davis Manafort, and how his compensation agreement actually works.

Seems like that might be worth looking into.

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Topics: John McCain, Rick Davis

John McCain

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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Topics: John McCain, Rick Davis

Rick Davis

McCain Campaign Manager's Firm Worked for Ukranian Billionaire with Ties to Iran

Andrew Tilghman | May 30, 2008, 1:00PM

Before Rick Davis began serving as John McCain's campaign manager, his lobbying firm had a pretty cosmopolitan set of clients.

For example, Ukranian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, who has several business links to Iran.

To be sure, there's a good crowd of lobbyists in Washington who work for international firms with ties to Iran.

But Davis isn't just any lobbyist. He's a lobbyist-turn-presidential campaign manager who just a couple weeks ago was drawing up rules on how to build a wall between lobbyists and McCain's political operatives. And McCain has been more hawkish than most of his colleagues about confronting Iran.

And, interestingly, Davis' lobbying shop, Davis Manafort, was doing work for the Ukranian oligarch about the same time that Davis was serving as the president of McCain's Reform Institute.

Davis Manafort was helping Akhmetov's conglomerate, System Capital Management Holdings, to develop a "corporate communications strategy" between the beginging of 2005 through the end of summer 2005, the company said.

The company's subsidiary, Metinvest, a steel company, has one of its 11 offices in Tehran. And another subsidiary, Khartsyzsk Pipe Plant, sells large pipes to Iran.

Those business ties go back to at least 2005, when Davis Manafort was working for the company, according to a handful of stories in business publications like the Russia & CIS Metals and Mining Weekly and the Mining and the Metals report, which we found on Nexis.

A McCain aide told us Davis did not work on that account while he was heading up the firm. And he was unaware of the company's ties to Iran.

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Topics: John McCain, Rick Davis