McCain adviser lobbied for Stephen Payne

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - A top foreign policy adviser to John McCain has lobbied the National Security Council, Congress and the State Department on behalf of Stephen Payne, the Texas businessman and longtime Republican fundraiser caught up in a controversy over whether he sought to sell access to the Bush White House.

According to records on file with Congress, McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann lobbied the Senate and House on behalf of Payne's firm, Worldwide Strategic Partners Inc., in 2002.

Scheunemann also lobbied the National Security Council and the State Department regarding energy issues in the Caspian region in 2005 and 2006 on behalf of another Payne firm, Caspian Alliance Inc., according to the records.

The McCain campaign said Scheunemann did not lobby on any specific legislation on behalf of either company, said McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers. The fees to Scheunemann's firm amounted to $50,000.

On Monday, McCain's 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.

In regard to Caspian Alliance, Scheunemann arranged several informational meetings for Payne with Department of State and NSC officials following Caspian energy issues, said Rogers.

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

On July 13, the Sunday Times of London published an article and released a videotape in which Payne suggested to a politician from Kazakhstan that Payne could help arrange meetings with top Bush administration officials.

The meetings were to be for the exiled former president of Kyrgyzstan. On the videotape, Payne suggested that the exiled former leader's "family, children, whatever ... should probably look at making a contribution to the Bush library."

"It would be like, maybe a couple of hundred thousand dollars, or something like that, not a huge amount but enough to show that they're serious," Payne says on the videotape, which resulted from an undercover operation by the newspaper.

Payne says he did nothing wrong.

In a follow-up story during the weekend, the Sunday Times reported that during the undercover meeting Payne said Scheunemann had been "working with me on my payroll for five of the last eight years."

The Times also said Scheunemann is listed in a brochure of Worldwide Strategic Energy, a sister company to Worldwide Strategic Partners, as part of Worldwide Strategic Energy's executive team. The Times says Worldwide Strategic Energy is the parent of Caspian Alliance.

The McCain campaign said Scheunemann has never been an employee, executive or member of Worldwide Strategic Energy's executive team and that he never authorized WSE or Payne to list him as such.

Regarding the original Sunday Times story, the White House said there was no link between any official business and the Bush library and that the president has asked that members of his foundation not inform him about anyone who has written a check, or decided not to write a check, until after he's no longer president.

In regard to Payne, the White House says he was never an employee, but the White House does use hundreds of volunteers a year for helping on advance work for trips.

In a business brochure issued by Worldwide Strategic Partners, Payne is identified as a "senior presidential advance representative" who traveled with President Bush to Jordan for the Red Sea Summit in June 2003, and with Vice President Dick Cheney to the Middle East in 2002 and 2005. The brochure also says Payne traveled with Cheney to South Korea in 2004, to Kazakhstan in 2006 and to Afghanistan for the inauguration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

In response to the controversy, Payne resigned from a federal advisory committee at the request of the Department of Homeland Security. He had a security clearance issued in connection with his position on the Secure Borders and Open Doors Advisory Committee.

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source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080722/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_adviser [link]