The Indianapolis Star has the play by play:

The removal of two Republican election workers from a Warren Township polling site - for using improper methods to challenge voters' rights to cast a ballot - has prompted local Republican Party leaders to issue a statement of regret. The two officials - an official challenger and a clerk - were removed by unanimous vote of the Marion County Election Board.

The officials were reportedly challenging voters with information obtained through party affiliation reports, which is not one of the accepted challenges such as a person's address, age or lack of ID.

"We were disappointed to hear of the incident regarding these two workers. The Marion County Republican Party was not aware of these alleged activities, nor did the Party instruct any worker to engage in such behavior," Marion County Republican Party Chairman Tom John said in a statement issued at 2 p.m.

So yesterday the McCain campaign showcased its newly announced keynote convention speaker, Rudy Giuliani -- fully rested after his own disastrous presidential run -- on a conference call, with reporters. Also on the call was the campaign's top foreign-policy hand, Randy Scheunemann.

But this isn't the first time that Rudy and Randy's names have popped up in the same context. Both have ties to Stephen Payne, the former White House official who reportedly promised access to Bush administration higher-ups in exchange for contributions to Bush's Presidential Libary. Since 2001, Scheunemann has been paid about $130,00 as an adviser to Payne's various energy development and consulting firms. And a document put out by one of Payne's firms listed Guliani's law firm, Bracewell-Giuliani, as "outside strategic and legal counsel."

With all the signs suggesting that Giuliani will play a major role in vouching for McCain's terrorist-fighting bona-fides this fall, the link to Scheunemann and Payne serves as a reminder -- as if any were needed -- that America's Mayor hasn't always been too careful about the company he keeps.

In this week's Sunday paper, the Times of London doled out another interesting detail from their secretly recorded conversation with former Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Payne.

This week's story was not as explosive as the one two weeks ago, when the Houston energy consultant offered to arrange meetings with White House officials in exchange for big donations to the future George W. Bush presidential library fund.

The latest story said Payne talked about obtaining travel documents from the United Nations in exchange for money. That's a remarkable offer from a guy who sat on the Secure Borders and Open Doors Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Advisory Committee. (Until he was told to resign a couple weeks ago).

On video, Payne was in a London hotel restaurant talking to a Kazakh politician known as Eric Dos. Dos made a reference to a previous business deal with Payne when Payne allegedly obtained a United Nations "passport" for a Kazakh billionaire who used to head the state oil and gas company, KazMunaiGas, or KMG.

Dos introduced the subject of Payne having helped Kulibayev obtain a UN "passport". Payne appeared to confirm his involvement, saying "Yeah yeah yeah, yeah." Asked if this was possible Payne answered: "It can be done. It's a question of money, always. Everything is." A source close to Payne said: "He didn't do this, but he knows who did. Kulibayev's firm paid for him to sit on a UN advisory commission and a friend of his on it got the document for him."

The "commission" referred to is the Energy Security Forum, a now defunct offshoot of the UN Economic Commission for Europe. Kulibayev was given a seat, courtesy of his position at KMG, from its inception in 2003, but never turned up to any of its meetings, said a spokesman.

The document referred to is not a formal passport but allows holders to travel internationally, according to the Times.

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.

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.

More evidence of ties between John McCain's top foreign policy adviser and Stephen Payne, the guy caught on video offering to arrange meetings with top White House officials in exchange for big donations to the future George W. Bush Presidential Library Fund.

We knew that Randy Scheunemann had worked for two of Payne's firms in recent years. Now the AP reports on a third:

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.

That brings the total paid by Payne's firms to McCain's adviser to about $130,000 since 2001.

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

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.

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.

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.

Yesterday we told you how Stephen Payne -- the guy caught on video by the Times of London apparently selling access to the White House -- seemed strangely absent from the Justice Department's database for registering foreign agents.

His company, Worldwide Strategic Partners, has a brochure claiming to do lobbying work for numerous countries. But the firm shows up nowhere in the DOJ database maintained under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Payne claims that he spoke with a DOJ official who assured him that his contracts did not need to be registered.

We called DOJ to ask about that. They looked through their records and told us this:

"A preliminary search of our records indicates that the Justice Department's FARA Unit has issued no written, legal opinion to Worldwide Strategic Partners or to Mr. Payne concerning the activities of Worldwide Strategic Partners . . . We continue to search our records to determine whether or not there have ever been any verbal communications between the FARA Unit and Mr. Payne or Worldwide Strategic Partners specifically relating to the activities of Worldwide Strategic Partners."

Payne obviously has a lot of connections in Washington. But so far, if he's got a friend over at DOJ, that friend has not come forward to back him up.

The White House has taken further steps to stamp out the scandal that erupted this week with the release of a video showing a Homeland Security adviser offering access to high-ranking officials in exchange for a big donation to Bush's future presidential library fund.

Talking to the New York Times, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino revealed new rules to prevent the appearance of any quid pro quo.

On Wednesday, Ms. Perino said Mr. Bush had asked that members of his foundation "do not inform him about anyone who has written a check, or decided not to write a check, until after he's no longer president."

That comes on the heels of a Bush library spokesman this week saying the library has decided not to accept foreign donations until after Bush leaves office in January. It remains unclear whether the library will disclose its donors, which is not required by law.

The library foundation, which is planned for the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, is expected to cost more than $200 million, most of which will be raised from donors. The library foundation has formed a fundraising committee, but formal fundraising has not yet begun, a library spokesman said.

So far, however, no one from the White House has told us what kind of relationship Bush has with the (now-former) Homeland Security adviser and longtime Bush fundraiser who was caught on video apparently peddling a cash-for-access deal.

It looks to us like the adviser, Stephen Payne, has known the president for at least 20 years.

So far, Perino has described Payne only as "somebody who's been involved in Texas politics for a long time and been a supporter of the Republican Party."

Stephen Payne, the Bush supporter caught on tape offering access for cash, claims his firm has done a lot of work for foreign governments and politicians, but neither he nor his firm show up much in the DOJ database that tracks registered foreign agents.

For example, one of the firm's brochures claims they did extensive work for Azerbaijan, including:

Arranged for the President of Azerbaijan to visit the U.S. and meet with President Bush -- a task the Azeri Government had been trying to do over the past three years

Arranged a private phone call between the Vice President of the United States and the President of Azerbaijan, prior to the Azeri Elections in November 2005

That sounds a lot like working for a foreign agent. The brochure also maintains that the firm did work for Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and an Uzbek opposition leader -- and alleged terrorist -- called Muhammad Salih.

Yet the only place Payne or Worldwide Strategies shows up in the DOJ database is for some work that Payne did for Pakistan a few years ago under the name of a firm called Team Eagle, also known as Team Barakat, according to the database maintained under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Payne told UPI that he spoke with the Department of Justice about this work and a DOJ official assured him that he did not have to register, in part because they were "commercial" contracts.

"I believe that we are in compliance with FARA regulations," Payne wrote in his e-mail to UPI. "We did not need to FARA register as the basis for our work was commercial projects in these countries. We checked with the Department of Justice's FARA division and were informed that we did not need to register for these commercial projects."

Officials over at DOJ read that this morning, too, and they're not entirely sure what Payne's talking about.

"We have seen the media reports about Mr. Payne's assertion and, at this time, we are attempting to determine whether or not they are accurate," DOJ spokesman Dean Boyd told TPMmuckraker.

Maybe the investigation into Payne will help explain what that's all about.

Globetrotter Stephen Payne has left his post as a Department of Homeland Security adviser.

The Department told him told him he could no longer serve on its top advisory committee. Publicly, the department didn't say why, according to UPI:

"The department asked him to step down" from his post on the Secure Borders and Open Doors Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, [Department spokeswoman Laura] Keehner said, declining to comment on the reasons.

Payne was appointed to the committee last year, where he served along with government officials, academics and others from the private sector.

Certainly his ouster had something to do with the video of Payne apparently offering to help a Kazakh politician arrange high-level meetings with Bush administration officials in exchange or large donations to the Bush presidential library fund.

But there's also Payne's apparent claim that he "transformed" an Uzbeck man named Mohammad Salih from an "accused terrorist" to a "U.S. ally."

In a brochure from Payne's firm, Worldwide Strategic Partners, the group claims that its work on behalf of Salih included:

-- Worked with the White House and the Department of State and Justice to facilitate the removal of Mr. Salih's name from the terrorist watch list and the waving of the Interpol Warrant for his arrest

-- Worked with the White House, Department of State, Justice, Homeland Security and Treasury, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and key Congressional Leaders -- to provide Mr. Salih with a U.S. Visa.

We can see why that's not really the kind of guy Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff would want advising him.

If a meeting with the vice president in Washington might cost about $600,000, getting the vice president to actually go visit a far-flung central Asian country might run you up to $2 million.

That's the suggestion buried in the string of emails we received today from Homeland Security adviser Stephen Payne.

Payne was caught on tape by the Times of London offering to set up meetings with high-level Bush administration officials in exchange for large payments to the future Bush library fund. In that video and the emails we obtained, Payne was talking with a Kazakh politician known as Eric Dos, whose real name is Yerzhan Dosmukhamedov.

In the emails and the video, Dos claims that back in 2006, the Kazakh government paid Payne's firm, Worldwide Strategic Partners, $2 million with the understanding that he would secure a visit from the vice president.

Cheney visited the country's capital in May 2006 and had dinner with the president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev. The visit was part of a broader effort to cozy up to central Asian countries and keep them independent from Moscow. They are also considering a pipeline that would allow European markets to access central Asian oil and natural gas.

While there, Cheney heartily endorsed the government, despite a spotty human rights record and questions about the legitimacy of the 2005 elections there.

Dos makes reference to the payment and the trip while talking about the logistics of transferring money.

[Note: The emails quoted here were lifted directly from the document provided by Payne and contain a lot of spelling errors.]

I am also telling them that transfer can do well. It did work when you successfully brought VP Cheaney to Kazakhstan in 2006. Corect me if I said wrong, last time the Kazakh govt through KMG or whatever entity transferred directly to Worldwide Strategic and then some of it was transferred to Bush's people? Was it to the Bush Sr library or foundation? or what? or did your company just pass it on to Cheaney's people?

It's not clear what KMG is referring to here, although there is a large oil and gas firm in Kazakistan called Kazmunaigas, which goes by the acronym KMG

A brochure from Payne's firm says Payne accompanied Cheney on the vice president's 2006 trip to Kazakhstan. A spokesman for Vice President Cheney's office did not respond to a request for comment.

In the email Payne provided us, Payne was emphatic that he had no idea what Dos was talking about.

Let me be clear on these issues you just raised -- "Cheney's people" were not paid anything as a result of his visit to KZ -- he came to KZ because he wanted to -- no other reason...I personally, as you know, have given and raised over a million for the Republican party over the past several years -- but these donations are never tied to any specific request or Govt. action.

Payne apparently wanted to talk directly and ended his email with: "we need to visit by phone asap -- what number should I call you on?"

The Homeland Security adviser accused of selling access to the White House provided TPMmuckraker with a string of emails that he says prove he did nothing wrong.

Stephen Payne says he never meant to suggest that meetings with high-level Bush administration officials were contingent on big contributions to the future Bush library fund.

He says the Times of London tried to "entrap me into alleging that an illegal relationship could be established."

He says these five pages of emails show how the Kazakh politician he met with was trying to pressure him into an illegal arrangement.

Payne starts out with the July 1 email he received from a man known as Eric Dos, a Kazakh politician whom Payne said he first met on a pipeline project in 2005.

Dos wrote in the email that he wanted to arrange high-level Washington meetings for the former president of Kyrgystan, Asker Akayev, who now lives in Moscow.

[Note: The emails quoted here were lifted directly from the document provided by Payne and contain a lot of spelling errors.]

...I told him [Akayev] that these services were not free. He was very keen to rebuild his good standing with the White House. Would you be willing to consider taking up his case while GWB is still in the White House. It would be helpful if you could indicate how much this would cost for him? Would it be possible to arrange a meeting with Dr Rice or even GWB when Prof Akayev travels toWashington DC. Could you please indicate if thsi is possile at all and what would the reciprocal amount of donation to the Republican Party or any other institutions affiliated with the Bushs or the Republican party?

Payne did not provide TPMmuckraker with the email he sent in response. Instead, he wrote: "NOTE: I deleted my response e-mail back saying I'd meet w/him."

Payne met with the the Kazakh politician at a hotel in London a few days later, which was caught on video by a reporter for the Times of London.

After the meeting, Payne said he followed up with an email on July 8 under the subject line: "Nice to see you!!"

"...Let's not do the Bush library contribution yet -- we need to lay some groundwork evern before we do that...let's set the total budget for 2008 (including the 250 library contribution) at 700.."

The next day, Dos pressed the idea of giving money to the library.

Money can be tomorrow. They can give the Bush donation in cash as I told them that the Bush library still to be created. Do you want me to bring cash to London to simplify things? Regs, Eric

Payne apparently tried to clarify that the he was planning a contribution to be made publically.

The 450 out of 700 we discussed is for my firm to help Pres. Akayev re-estabilish his standing in Washington and let the truth come out as to which President of Kyrgistan is really a friend to the USA -- that 450 is for public relations and for our consulting efforts -- if I choose to make some political donations it will be my personal decision ... for me to accept the 250 and pass it directly to the library is legal but it would be done publically in Akayev's name..

You can see the statement Payne gave us here and the full string of emails here. TPMmuckraker has no way of authenticating them and we have no way to know how many other emails the two men may have exchanged.

Payne declined our request for a telephone interview and has not responded to our written questions.

It was just one month after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

U.S. forces were poised to invade Afghanistan in just a few weeks.

Gen. Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan was getting a lot of pressure from the White House to cooperate with the newly declared War on Terror. And he wanted a few favors in return.

Who did the Musharraf government turn to to help navigate relations with the U.S.?

A few Houston-based Republicans, including Stephen Payne, who was recently caught on video telling a politician from Kazakistan he could arrange meetings with high-ranking Bush administrations officials in exchange for a large donation to Bush's presidential library fund.

Payne was one of several Bush supporters who made up a firm known as Team Eagle, which signed a $180,000-a-year contract with the Pakistani government on Oct. 13, 2001, according to a government database maintained under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The firm was also known as Team Barakat, according to FARA documents.

Payne was partners in the firm with Gary Polland, the head of the Harris County Republican Party, according to a January 14, 2002, report in the Houston Chronicle, which we found in the Nexis database.

Polland was widely celebrated as the man who empowered the Houston-area party machine in the 1990s.

A third partner was Houston lawyer Brian Ettinger, former aide to U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-DE), according to the Chronicle report. (Ettinger may have worked for a Democrat, but he's given more than $20,000 to Republican political campaigns and PACs since 2002, FEC reports show)

Payne, Polland and Ettinger did not immediately respond to calls for comment.

You might remember that just before September 11, 2001, our relations with Pakistan were very rocky. The U.S. State Department had strongly condemned Pakistan for testing a nuclear bomb in 1998. And we denounced Musharaff as an undemocratic dictator after he staged a coup in 1999 and ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Specifically, the U.S. had imposed a range of economic sanctions on Pakistan.

But all that came into question after the Bush administration decided it wanted Musharraf to let the U.S. run massive military supplies through his county as we sought to overthrow the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

It was those economic sanctions that the Pakistani government wanted some help with from the Houston firm.

According to the contract signed in October 2001, the Pakistanis wanted:

"Meetings with Administration officials and members of congress and/or staff and share with Pakistan the U.S. attitudes and desires regarding the bilateral relationship with Pakistan and assist in bringing U.S. interests together. The policies in issue are:

(1) In ending U.S. sanctions against Pakistan.

(2) In providing economic assistant on Pakistan's external debt and related trade issues.

Payne's current firm, Worldwide Strategies, has a brochure that rattles off a list of major accomplishments it achieved for Pakistan in a brochure originally obtained by the Times of London:

Helped Pakistan negotiate a 5-year, $3 billion dollar aid package from the United States .

Coordinated the removal of economic and military sanctions imposed on Pakistan under the Clinton Administration
`
Secured Pakistan the prestigious 'Major Non-NATO Ally Status" including: Japan, Australia, Israel, Egypt

And this might be the most interesting accomplishment Payne's firm claims:

After intensive coordinated efforts, Pakistan was finally able to purchase f-16 fighter jets (previously canceled under the Clinton Administration) and secured the delivery of C-130 transport aircrafts, helicopters and night-vision equipment from the U.S. to fulfill Pakistani military requirements."

Worldwide Strategies also quotes a letter from Musharraf to Payne:

... It gives me great pleasure to thank you for playing such an important role in strengthening US Pakistan ties . . . The challenges faced by both our countries in the aftermath of September 11th, brought us even closer, in which you played a pivotal role . . .

-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
Letter to Stephen Payne, Dated January 21, 2006 . . .

It was the reporter's fault.

That's pretty much what Homeland Security adviser and Houston businessman Stephen Payne said.

Payne claims he never meant to suggest -- as a video from the Times of London suggests -- that he could arrange meetings with high-level Bush Administration officials in exchange for a large contribution to the Bush presidential library fund.

He told the Houston Chronicle:

"I was not there to raise money for the library, I have no interest in the library. I was there to get a client," Payne said.

Payne met in a swanky London hotel with a man known as Eric Dos, a Kazakh politician Payne said he first met on a pipeline project in 2005. Payne did not know the other man was a reporter or that he was being videotaped.

Payne says the two men asked him leading questions.

"After we completed that hourlong conversation, they kept wanting to come back to making a donation to the library. I made it clear on multiple occasions that the library wasn't taking any money yet, and that foreign contributions may or may not be accepted."

Payne told the Dallas Morning News that the paper edited out his remarks that would absolve him of suspicion.

"Over the course of an hourlong conversation in a social setting, isolated comments can be taken out of context," he said in the statement. Mr. Payne accused the paper of "manufacturing" the news and making him the victim of a "confidence game."

A spokesman for the Bush library foundation said rules are in place to prevent the solicitation described by Payne.

In Austin, a spokesman for the Bush library foundation said no money will be accepted from foreign sources while Mr. Bush is still in office.

"It's safe to say the things that are alleged in this story would never be encouraged or allowed," foundation spokesman Dan Bartlett said.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) plans to investigate reports that a Homeland Security adviser was soliciting donations to the Bush presidential library fund in exchange for access to high-ranking government officials.

Waxman sent a letter to Stephen Payne's Houston office requesting written responses to a series of questions:

1. What is your affiliation with George W. Bush Presidential Library? Have you been authorized or asked to solicit funds for the library?

2. Have you ever solicited funds for the library from any individuals, governments, companies, or organizations?

3. If you have ever solicited funds for the library, please describe each solicitation, including the persons or organizations solicited and amounts requested and received, and describe whether you arranged or attempted to arrange any meetings for such persons or organizations with U.S. government officials.

Meanwhile, Department of Homeland Security officials are also investigating Payne, who was appointed last year to sit on the department's main advisory board.

"This is a horribly unfortunate story," said Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner. "We are looking into the facts." She declined to comment further.

Waxman asked that Payne provide his responses to the committee by July 23.

Read more for the full text of the Waxman's letter.

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It looks like George W. Bush has known Stephen Payne pretty well for a long time.

The White House today tried to distance Bush from a former lobbyist who was caught on tape by the Times of London offering to arrange meetings with high-level U.S. officials in exchange for large payments to the future Bush presidential library fund.

But the president and the Houston-based consultant have known each other for at least 20 years.

Payne was George W. Bush's personal travel aide during the senior Bush's 1988 presidential campaign, according to an out-dated version of Payne's firm's Web site.

More recently, he's been running a firm called Worldwide Strategic Partners (pdf), which bills itself as an "International Relations and Energy Development" consulting firm.

A photo of Payne with Afghan President Hamid Karzai is featured in one of his firm's powerpoint slides.

Payne has helped Bush and Cheney when they visit the Middle East. He joined the president at the Red Sea Summit in Jordan in June 2003, serving as a "Senior Presidential Advance Representative," according to his firm's own description.

With the vice president, Payne has traveled to the Middle East in 2002 and 2005, to Korea in 2004, Kazakhstan in 2006, and Afghanistan for the inauguration of Afghan President Karzai.

Payne's firm says he's been a "governmental affairs consultant" representing Afghanistan, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Morgan Stanley, SAP Software, & Continental Airlines. He's also worked for Yukos Oil, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Payne registered a few lobbying contracts back in 2001 and 2002 for companies including SAP America and United Space Alliance.

Payne also appears to have deep ties with the Texas GOP fundraising machine.

In 2000, Payne was listed among Bush's "Pioneers," the list of campaign bundlers who helped raise more than $100,000 for the president's first bid for the White House.

As the 2004 campaign geared up, Payne was among some 350 bundlers invited to Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas for a barbecue, billed as a "donor maintenance event," according to the Houston Chronicle at the time.

In the 1990s, Payne served as a fundraiser and staffer for Sen. Kay Baily Hutchison (R-TX). He served as "vice chair" of her two most recent campaigns.

Recently, he was appointed by Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff to serve on the Homeland Security Advisory Council, where he sits on the Secure Borders and Open Doors Advisory Committee.

How much does it cost to get a meeting with top Bush administration officials?

According to one lobbyist, maybe about $600,000. And you can make that check out to the future George W. Bush presidential library fund.

The Times of London has a video of a Homeland Security adviser and Houston-based lobbyist telling a Kazakh man that he could arrange a meeting with high-level administration officials in exchange for a big donation to the future Bush Library.

In the video, Stephen Payne tells "Eric Dos," a politician from central Asia whose full name is Yerzhan Dosmukhamedov, that he can help arrange meetings with top Bush officials for Askar Akayev, the former president of Kyrgyzstan, who is now in exile in Moscow.

"The exact budget I will come up with, but it will be somewhere between $600,000 and $750,000, with about a third of it going directly to the Bush library," Payne said in the video. "I think that the family, children, whatever [of Akayev], should probably look at making a contribution to the Bush library."

An undercover reporter sits at a table with the Kazakh politician and asks Payne who the meeting might involve.

"Cheney's possible, definitely the national security adviser [Stephen Hadley], definitely either Dr Rice or . . . I think a meeting with Dr Rice or the deputy secretary [John Negroponte] is possible . . .

"The main thing is that he [the Asian politician] comes, and he's well received, that he meets with high-level people . . . and we send positive statements made back from the administration about 'This guy wasn't such a bad guy, many people have done worse'."

Unlike campaigns, presidential libraries do not have to disclose their donors.

Last year Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff appointed Payne to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, which is made up of government officials, academics and others from the private sector.

Today, when reporters in Washington asked White House spokeswoman Dana Perino about Payne, she distanced the president from him, saying that "the President has probably met him on a number of occasions," but Payne has never worked at the White House.