A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, in his offices and aboard a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.
When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s clients, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.
Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.
3 comments:
McCain: Reports on lobbyist a "smear"
By LIBBY QUAID, Associated Press Writer 22 minutes ago
TOLEDO, Ohio - Republican presidential hopeful John McCain issued a statement Wednesday night saying he "will not allow a smear campaign" to distract from his campaign as published reports questioned his relationship with a lobbyist.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Washington Post quoted longtime aide John Weaver, who split with McCain last year, as saying he met with Vicki Iseman and urged her to stay away from McCain. The New York Times suggested an inappropriate relationship between the Arizona senator and Iseman, a Washington lobbyist. The New York Times quoted anonymous aides saying they had confronted McCain and Iseman, urging them to stay away from each other, before his failed presidential campaign in 2000.
Eight years later, McCain is close to securing the GOP nomination. Aides said the senator would address the allegations at a news conference Thursday morning.
The published reports said McCain and Iseman each denied having a romantic relationship, and the paper offered no evidence that they had, saying only that aides worried about the appearance of McCain having close ties to a lobbyist with business before the Senate Commerce Committee on which McCain served.
The story alleges that McCain wrote letters and pushed legislation involving television station ownership that would have benefited Iseman's clients.
In a statement issued by his presidential campaign, McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said: "It is a shame that The New York Times has lowered its standards to engage in a hit-and-run smear campaign.
"John McCain has a 24-year record of serving our country with honor and integrity. He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the issues at stake in this election.
"Americans are sick and tired of this kind of gutter politics, and there is nothing in this story to suggest that John McCain has ever violated the principles that have guided his career."
McCain's campaign also issued a lengthy statement insisting that his actions did not benefit any one party or favor any particular interest.
McCain defending his integrity last December, after he was questioned about reports that the Times was investigating allegations of legislative favoritism by the Arizona Republican and that his aides had been trying to dissuade the newspaper from publishing a story.
"I've never done any favors for anybody — lobbyist or special-interest group. That's a clear, 24-year record," he told reporters in Detroit.
McCain and four other senators were accused two decades ago of trying to influence banking regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, a savings and loan financier later convicted of securities fraud. The Senate Ethics Committee ultimately decided that McCain had used "poor judgment" but that his actions "were not improper" and warranted no penalty.
McCain has said that episode helped spur his drive to change campaign finance laws in an attempt to reduce the influence of money in politics.
In late 1999, McCain twice wrote letters to the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of Florida-based Paxson Communications — which had paid Iseman as its lobbyist — urging quick consideration of a proposal to buy a television station license in Pittsburgh. At the time, Paxson's chief executive, Lowell W. "Bud" Paxson, also was a major contributor to McCain's 2000 presidential campaign.
McCain did not urge the FCC commissioners to approve the proposal, but he asked for speedy consideration of the deal, which was pending from two years earlier. In an unusual response, then-FCC Chairman William Kennard complained that McCain's request "comes at a sensitive time in the deliberative process" and "could have procedural and substantive impacts on the commission's deliberations and, thus, on the due process rights of the parties."
McCain wrote the letters after he received more than $20,000 in contributions from Paxson executives and lobbyists. Paxson also lent McCain his company's jet at least four times during 1999 for campaign travel.
Who Cares?
Well, his wife ain't as new as she used to be back when he left his first wife and three kids.
--------
Cindy McCain's Past
By Oliver Willis
Providing you more information on the candidates and their families and people in glass houses who may throw stones.
In 1989, Cindy McCain became addicted to opioid painkillers such as Percocet and Vicodin. She later attributed her addiction to pain following two spinal surgeries for ruptured discs as well as emotional stress during her husband's entanglement in the Keating Five scandal of that time, which also involved her role as a bookkeeper who had difficulty finding receipts of Keating-related expenses. The addiction progressed to the point where she resorted to stealing drugs from her own AVMT. During 1992, Tom Gosinski, the director of government and international affairs for AVMT, discovered her drug theft. Subsequently in 1992, McCain's parents staged an intervention to force her to get help; she told her husband about her problem, attended a drug treatment facility, began outpatient sessions, and ended her three years of addiction; a hysterectomy in 1993 resolved her back pain. In January 1993, McCain terminated Gosinski's employment on grounds of budgetary reasons. In spring 1993, Gosinski tipped off the Drug Enforcement Administration to investigate McCain's drug theft. Her activities violated federal statutes, so a federal investigation was conducted. McCain's defense team, led by Washington lawyer John Dowd, secured an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's office that limited her punishment to financial restitution and enrollment in a diversion program, without anything being made public.
Meanwhile, in early 1994 Gosinski filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against McCain, which he told her he would settle for $250,000. In April 1994, Dowd requested that Maricopa County officials investigate Gosinski for extortion. At this point, the Phoenix New Times was preparing a negatively-cast story about the whole affair and was about to publish it. Cindy McCain pre-empted this by publicly revealing her past addiction, stating she hoped it would give fellow drug addicts courage in their struggles: "Although my conduct did not result in compromising any missions of AVMT, my actions were wrong, and I regret them." A flurry of press attention followed, including charges by Gosinski that she had asked him to lie concerning her drug use when the McCains were applying to adopt their baby from Bangladesh and statements by past AVMT employees that Gosinski had once threatened to blackmail her. A few weeks after her announcement, the Variety Club of Arizona canceled its Humanitarian of the Year award dinner in her honor citing poor ticket sales. In the end, both Gosinski's lawsuit and the extortion investigation against him were dropped. AVMT concluded its activities in 1995.
And the love story behind it all.
McCain was still married and living with his wife in 1979 while, according to The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof, "aggressively courting a 25-year-old woman who was as beautiful as she was rich." McCain divorced his wife, who had raised their three children while he was imprisoned in Vietnam, then launched his political career with his new wife's family money.
And where does McCain's money come from?
Less well-known is that she is chairwoman of Hensley, the nation's third-largest distributor of Anheuser-Busch (BUD, news, msgs) products. She also controls the McCain family portfolio, which is estimated at between $36.6 million and $53.4 million.
Post a Comment