Subject: [big campaign] TPM: Two McCain lobbyists worked for companies in oil-sex scandal
From: David Donnelly <[email-masked]>
To: big campaign <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:36:12 -0400
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

Worth sending around, no?

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/mccain_cleaning_up_l
obbying_hi.php

Two High-Ranking McCain Campaign Officials Lobbied For Companies At Center
of Sex-For-Oil Scandal
By Greg Sargent and Eric Kleefeld - September 12, 2008, 4:47PM

Here's something that could complicate the McCain-Palin reform message a
bit: It turns out that McCain's national finance co-chair, Wayne Berman, is
a paid lobbyist, and has been one for years, for two of the oil companies
that are at the center of the sex, drugs and oil scandal enveloping the
Interior Department.

One of McCain's high-ranking campaign officials also lobbied for the
companies for years -- during time periods when the scandal has unfolded --
up until he joined the McCain campaign in the spring.

The lobbyists themselves aren't tied to the scandal in any way, and their
activity on the companies' behalf doesn't implicate McCain, either. But it's
legit to ask why it is that a campaign that proclaims that it's about reform
is taking advice and/or money from lobbyists who were getting paid by
companies involved in the scandal, one of whom is still collecting money
from them.

Berman, who's McCain's national finance co-chair and one of the Arizona
Senator's leading bundlers, is a lobbyist with Ogilvy Government Relations,
which has been paid millions of dollars for lobbying by the Chevron and Hess
corporations, according to disclosure forms. The second official, John
Green, who is McCain's chief liaison to Congress, also was with Ogilvy and
worked on those same contracts until joining the campaign.

Chevron and Hess are involved in what is arguably the most sordid scandal in
Washington right now.

The short version is as follows: Employees at a number of leading energy
companies allegedly gave improper gifts -- including sports tickets, ski
trips, illegal drugs and even sexual relations -- to federal officials in
charge of a program that oversees a program by which the companies can pay
for use of public lands with free energy instead of cash, saving them money.

The office of the Interior Department's inspector General launched a probe
in 2006, and this week, it released a report finding that energy company
officials serially and flagrantly violated gift rules and went so far as to
give drugs and sex to government officials, and the government officials in
turn gave contracts to favored companies.

According to Senate lobbying disclosure forms, Ogilvy -- represented by
Berman and Green -- lobbied for Chevron and Hess from 2005 to the present,
and was paid a total of $2.36 million by the companies. They had enlisted
Ogilvy's help in order to influence Congress on such issues as comprehensive
energy reform, energy price-gouging, and other issues related to liquefied
natural gas.

Both Berman and Green lobbied for the companies for about three years,
continuing when the scandals were already public knowledge, and Beman is
still lobbying for them. It's legit to ask why Berman wouldn't have cut ties
with the companies at a time when he's working for McCain, even merely for
appearances' sake.

"You have to wonder why Berman and Green would continue to lobby for oil
companies that conduct business with the government in this sordid and
sleazy manner," says David Donnelly of the nonpartisan Campaign Money Watch.
"Relying on lobbyists like these certainly puts a little more tarnish on
McCain's so-called reformer image."

The McCain campaign didn't respond to a request for comment.

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