Bush WH visitor logs show 53 visits by lobbyist Stephen Payne

[deminks]

http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/42342

4 Sep 2009 // Washington, D.C. - In response to CREW’s July 15, 2008 Freedom of Information Act request for records of visits to the White House by Stephen Payne, the White House today disclosed records documenting 53 different visits starting in June 18, 2001, and ending on June 13, 2007. In 2008, Mr. Payne was caught on videotape apparently trying to trade his access to top administration officials for significant donations to President Bush’s library foundation. When the story broke the White House attempted to distance itself from Mr. Payne. Separately, the White House denied Mr. Payne’s claim he was involved in arranging meetings for Vice President Cheney, including a visit by the vice president to the Kazakh president in May 2006.

via RawStory

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/09/04/white-house-to-post-visitor-records-online/

see update, which also lists 200 visits from religious right.

[babylonsister]

1. From wiki on Payne...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Payne_(lobbyist)

snip//

Controversy

In July 2008 Payne was secretly videotaped discussing a US$750,000.00 lobbying contract and offering access to senior U.S. officials (including Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Joe Biden) to the exiled Kazakhstani politician Yerzhan Dosmukhamedov (known as Eric Dos for short),<24> and suggesting a US$250,000 donation to the future George W. Bush Presidential Library.<4>

In the conversation, which was secretly taped by The Sunday Times at a meeting in the restaurant of The Lanesborough hotel in London, Dosmukhamedov claimed that the former Kyrgyz president Askar Akayev wished to rehabilitate his image and meet with the U.S. officials. Payne has claimed that he did nothing wrong, and stated that he was there to recruit a new legitimate lobbying client and that it was Dos who first raised the issue of a donation in his initial e-mail to Payne.<23><25> The Sunday Times has released only 4 minutes and 31 seconds of the hour-long meeting and Payne claims that the unreleased portion of the video would show that he was at the meeting to solicit a lobbying client and that the release of the entire tape would dispel The Sunday Times version of the video where Payne claims his comments were edited and taken out of context.<26> Payne was asked to resign from the Homeland Security Advisory Committees directly following the July 13, 2008 publication of the article.<1> U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, on behalf of the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, wrote a letter to Payne one day later, on July 14, 2008, requesting further details and background about this incident, and asked Payne to respond to his letter within ten days.<27><28> Payne responded to the committee within ten days and Congress adjourned two months later without any further action from the House Committee.<29><30>

References

[napi21]

2. I have a stupid question. I know it's illegal for congress critters

to engage in pay to play, to make a deal for personal gain, and of course lobbyists to bribe any gov't official or the official to accept a bribe, BUT in the case you described, this Payne guy doesn't appear to have done this for personal gain. Why wouldn't it just be fund raising?

[blogslut]

3. Ha!

Did you see Cheney's visitor records?

http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/42307

It's all redaction blackouts except for Stephen Payne!

[deminks]

4. Payne also worked for Pakistan

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/07/steven_payne_worked_for_pakist.php

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.

(end snip)

[deminks]

5. Here's the video from the Times Online. It seems like a little more than just a library donation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnVMQ4uXZeU

[UTUSN]

6. K&R #3 for, (oh, fill in the blanks)!1 n/t