Subject: [big campaign] Backgrounder on Timmons, McCain's transition lobbyists
From: David Donnelly <[email-masked]>
To: big campaign <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:48:15 -0400
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

A FACTSHEET FROM CAMPAIGN MONEY WATCH
 
Last Update: September 12, 2008
 
THE TONGSUN PARK CONNECTION: WILLIAM TIMMONS¹ THIRTY YEARS OF WORK FOR A
WELL-KNOWN KOREAN INFLUENCE PEDDLER
 
Time magazine reported today that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) had appointed
long-time Washington lobbyist William E. Timmons to head his transition
team.[1] <#_ftn1>  But while Time noted Timmons current client list of such
corporate entities as Visa and the American Petroleum Institute, it failed
to mention thirty years of work he had done for a shady South Korean
business recently convicted of bribery related to the Iraq Oil for Food
program.
 
As early as 1975, Timmons was connected to an influence peddling affair
centered on Korean businessman Tongsun Park
 
* According to the Washington Post, Timmons represented Park in Washington
at the time, according to federal investigators, that Park was attempting on
behalf of the South Korean government to bribe US officials with cash and
gifts.[2] <#_ftn2>  (Among other issues, the Koreans were worried about US
plans to withdraw troops from Korea.)
 
* Known as Koreagate, the investigation was sparked when Timmons approached
the Justice Department to ask whether he ought to register under the Foreign
Agent Registration Act. (The charges were dropped after he testified to
Congress about giving envelopes stuffed with as much as $20,000 to more than
30 members of Congress.)[3] <#_ftn3>
 
Timmons continued to work closely with Tongsun Park, even assisting him in
the late 1980s on a project to improve the reputation of Panamanian dictator
Manuel Noriega
 
* The efforts to rehabilitate Noriega were led by Daniel J. Murphy, a former
chief of staff to Vice President George H.W. Bush. According to the
Washington Post: 
 
³[Š]Murphy's meeting with Noriega was allegedly part of a larger effort to
improve Noriega's image and involves two politically well-connected
Washington lobbyists, Thomas Hale Boggs Jr. and William E. Timmons, and
South Korean businessman Tongsun Park.²[4] <#_ftn4>
 
Timmons later represented Park and an Iraqi agent in attempting to evade the
United Nations¹ sanctions against Iraq following the Gulf War.
 
* According to National Review, Timmons represented Samir Vincent, a
naturalized Iraqi citizen who later pled guilt for engaging in illegal
transactions with the Iraqi government. He was also known as a back-channel
to the Iraqi government.[5] <#_ftn5>
 
* Timmons then helped introduce Vincent to US officials to look for ways to
trade with Iraq outside the oil for food program. Among those Vincent met
with were deputies to US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton and American Red
Cross chief  and now Senator  Elizabeth Dole.
 
* When Timmons¹ contacts within the government failed to produce the right
results, he then introduced Vincent to his old client Tongsun Park.
According to Vincent, within a few weeks, "Park had arranged a meeting for
us with the Secretary-General of the United Nations at the United Nations
headquarters." 
 
* Park was later convicted in 2007 of the exact activities that Timmons
assisted him with, including the meeting with the UN Secretary-General:
 
The Washington Post: Park ³admitted taking more than $2.5 million from
Saddam Hussein's government to bribe senior U.N. officials to persuade them
to ease economic sanctions against Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He
was convicted in July of acting as an unregistered agent of Iraq; he was to
have set up a back channel between then-U.N. Secretary General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali and then-Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.²

 

[1] <#_ftnref>  Michael Scherer, ³McCain Taps Lobbyist for Transition,²
Time, September 12, 2008.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1840722,00.html

[2] <#_ftnref>  Scott Armstrong, ³Information From Habib Led to Probe of
Korean Influence,² The Washington Post, June 17, 1977.

[3] <#_ftnref> Michelle Mittelstadt, ³Scandal on Capitol Hill,² Dallas
Morning News, January 8, 2006/

[4] <#_ftnref>  Joe Pichirallo, ³Ex-Bush Aide Is Said To Have Advised
Noriega,² The Washington Post, January 22, 1988.

[5] <#_ftnref>  Claudia Rossett, ³The U.N.'s Day in Court,² National Review,
June 28, 2006.

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