Obama Memo on a “Lobbyist-Run White House”
MEMORANDUM
To: Interested Parties
Fr: Obama Campaign
Re: McCain’s Team of Lobbyists Grows, As They Plan for a Lobbyist-Run White House
Dt: September 14, 2008
Joining the ranks of the seven lobbyists running McCain’s campaign, William Timmons, a top Washington lobbyist, has been named to plan McCain’s transition effort. With at least 177 lobbyists helping advise, raise money and run his campaign, there was little doubt who would be influencing McCain’s White House, should he win, but this appointment just confirms: a John McCain White House will be organized, managed and influenced by lobbyists and the same old Washington politics John McCain has decried. Campaigning on reform while surrounding himself with lobbyists for the oil industry, big drug companies and foreign interests doesn’t seem much like change, and nothing shows that more than naming a top Washington lobbyist to plan his transition.
“We know John McCain’s campaign is run by Washington lobbyists, and we just learned that he has hired one of Washington’s most famous and powerful lobbyists to staff his White House. It’s not a Team of Mavericks who’ll be running Washington if John McCain wins — it’s a Team of Lobbyists.” Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor
See below for more information on William Timmons, and go to www.mclobbyists.com for more details on McCain’s team of lobbyists.
“Timmons and Company pioneered the concept and the industry standard for Washington representation.”
SEPTEMBER 2008: TIMMONS JOINS MCCAIN TEAM
One Of DC’s “Most Senior Inside Players,” A Special Interest Lobbyist To Help McCain Transition Planning Effort. William E Timmons, Sr., the McCain campaign’s new senior advisor of a hypothetical transition, is a “prominent Washington lobbyist who has worked for every Republican president since Richard Nixon” pointed out Time magazine. This year alone, he is registered as a lobbyist for Freddie Mac, Anheuser-Busch, an insurance industry trade group, an oil industry group, and a pharmaceutical company. Time called him one “of Washington’s steadiest and most senior inside players.”
Irony: RNC Attacked Obama On This Issue Just Weeks Ago. In late August, the RNC attached the Obama campaign for hiring Daniel Shapiro, a former staffer at the same firm, sending an email headlined “Daniel Shapiro, Foreign Policy Adviser, Was A Registered Federal Lobbyist For American Petroleum Institute”
TIMMONS WELL KNOWN AS TOP GOP LOBBYIST FOR DECADES
Timmons, A Former Nixon Aide, Founded Lobbying Shop In The Aftermath Of Watergate. “Aftershocks of the Watergate scandal were still rumbling in 1975 when William Timmons and three other former Nixon aides decided to launch their own lobbying shop. ‘We figured if we got 10 clients to pay us $100,000 a year, we’d be in the clover,’ recalls the 76-year-old Timmons.”
William Timmons: “Premier Washington Lobbyist For Blue-Chip Clients.”
William Timmons: “A Washington Lobbyist And GOP Insider.”
William Timmons: “A Nixon White House Aide Who Has Been One Of The Capital’s Top Lobbyists.”
Timmons Build Reputation Based On Contacts Made While Working For The Government. “Timmons and other successful Washington lobbyists built their reputations on the close friendships and contacts they developed with top administration and foreign officials — contacts which sometimes formed while the lobbyist worked for the government.”
WHILE MCCAIN CRITICIZED FREDDIE MAC’S LOBBYISTS, TIMMONS EARNED MILLIONS LOBBYING FOR FREDDIE MAC.
McCain Criticized the Payments of Lobbyists by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. In a July 2008 op-ed in the St. Petersburg Times, McCain wrote, “Americans should be outraged at the latest sweetheart deal in Washington. Congress will put U.S. taxpayers on the hook for potentially hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It’s a tribute to what these two institutions — which most Americans have never heard of — have bought with more than $170-million worth of lobbyists in the past decade.” In a September 2008 op-ed, McCain and Palin wrote that in reforming Freddie and Fanny, “we will make sure that they..no longer use taxpayer backing to serve lobbyists…Fannie and Freddie’s lobbyists succeeded.
Yet Timmons Earned More Than $2.7 Million for His Firm Lobbying for Freddie Mac from 2000-2008. William Timmons earned $2,795,000 in lobbying fees for his firm lobbying from 2000 through the 2nd Quarter of 2008. His firm lobbied for Freddie Mac on housing issues.
TIMMONS ALSO EARNED MILLIONS FOR HIS FIRM LOBBYING FOR OIL COMPANIES
Timmons Earned $2.1 Million for His Firm Lobbying for Unocal and Also Lobbied for Chevron. William Timmons lobbied for Unocal from 1999-2005 and then briefly lobbied for Chevron in 2005 after the firm purchased Unocal.
Timmons Lobbied on Two Price Gouging Prevention Bills For Oil Industry. According to lobbying disclosure forms, William Timmons – on behalf of the American Petroleum Institute – lobbied on S. 94 and S. 1263 in 2007, two bills which dealt with prohibiting price gouging by merchants. Timmons continued his registration, which began in 1999, into the summer of 2008.
William Timmons’ Lobbying Clients (Current Clients are in bold):
1) Alliance For Sensible Airspace Planning
2) American Council Of Life Insurers
3) American Health Care Assn
4) American Medical Association
5) American Petroleum Institute
6) Anheuser-Busch
7) AT&T
8)
Boeing Co
9) Bristol Myers-Squibb
10) Centax Corporation
11) Chevron USA Inc/Unocal
12) Chrysler LLC
13) Consumer Healthcare Products Assn
14) Dell Inc
15) Dun & Bradstreet
16) Freddie Mac
17) Health Distributions Management Assn
18) Kinetic Concepts Inc
19) Lincare
20) M2z Networks Inc
21) Metricom Inc
22) Micron Technology
23) National Assn Of Manufacturers (NAM)
24) National Rifle Association
25) Primerica Financial Services
26) Southern California Edison
27) Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc
28) Thoratec Corp
29) Trueposition Inc
30) Union Pacific Corp
31) University Of Miami
32) Vanguard Group Inc
33) Visa Inc
TIMMONS’ CONTROVERSIAL WORK AS FOREIGN LOBBYIST
Revolving Door Alert: While Serving On US Trade Commission, Timmons Maintained Ties To His Foreign Lobbying Operation, Which Secured Deals for Clients. Timmons’ firms’ “contracts with Japanese companies soared to more than $1 million after” joined “a key U.S.-Japanese trade panel.” In 1983, Timmons had created Global USA, a “new overseas trading and lobbying company.” While he said he sold his shares before joining the U.S.-Japan Advisory Commission, he acknowledges that he “did counsel Global officials from time to time on the status of U.S. and Japanese trade relations while he was on the commission.” After leaving the commission, he “then bought back 30 percent of the firm’s stock after leaving the advisory panel in 1985 at no increase in per-share price.” The report came as part of a Wall Street Journal series titled “The Influence Peddlers,” dealing with “the controversial revolving door between government service and the Washington lobbying and consulting industry.”
HITACHI: Timmons Contract Came As US Government Opened Investigation
8/2/85: Justice Dept. Opens Investigation Of Hitachi For Antitrust Violations. In early August 1985, the US Dept. of “investigation of Hitachi Ltd. for alleged unfair pricing practices.” The probe “accused the Japanese of closing their doors to U.S.-produced goods while using unfair tactics to make gains in the domestic U.S. marketplace.”.
8/27/85: Hitachi Hires Timmons’s Firm. The $75,000 contract (one year) was to “represent the interests of Hitachi before the legislative and executive branches.” http://www.fara.gov/docs/3489-Exhibit-AB-19850901-D0V9DI01.pdf>
BOPHUTHATSWANA: Representing an Unrecognized “Homeland” In Africa Tied To Apartheid
8/83: Global USA Signed Three-Year Contract ($120,000 Per Year) With The Leader Of Bophuthatswana. http://www.fara.gov/docs/3489-Exhibit-AB-19830801-D0VAAV01.pdf)>
U.S. Did Not Recognize Bophuthatswana As Sovereign Nation; “Homeland” Created to Facilitate South Africa’s Apartheid Regime. “There are no race-separation laws there, but no country beyond South Africa recognizes Bophuthatswana’s sovereignty. Apartheid’s foes say the existence of the homeland is one of the underpinnings of the system of white-minority rule. They call the homelands dumping grounds for blacks who are unneeded in so-called ‘white’ South Africa.”
U.N. Special Committee Against Apartheid Slammed Those Who Forged Links To Bophuthatswana; Accused Them Of “Profiting From Apartheid.” The U.N. Special Committee Against Apartheid wrote that those who were forging ties to the “homeland” were “demonstrating utter contempt for the African people who have denounced and fought against the so-called ‘independence’ of Bophuthatswana and other bantustans as a maneuver by the apartheid regime to dispossess the African majority of their inalienable rights in South Africa.”
More Foreign Clients
As a foreign agent, Timmons and his firm, Global USA also worked for:
· Voest-Alpine (Austria)
· Industrial Cooperation and Development (Austria)
· Samsung (Korea)
· Nippon Airways (Japan)
· Fanuc Ltd. (Japan)
· Japanese Aero Engine Corp
· Japanese Aircraft Development Corp.
· Komatsu (Japan)
· Kyocera (Japan)
· Mazak (Japan)
http://thepage.time.com/obama-memo-on-a-lobbyist-run-white-house/
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