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Last Updated: Jul 17, 2008 - 7:46:05 AM |
Jim Courter, one of Senator John McCain's top fundraisers, has
resigned from the McCain campaign just days after Portfolio.com
reported that Courter's company had been fined by regulators.
The Federal Communications Commission last week levied a fine of $1.3
million against IDT, a New Jersey telecommunications company headed by
Courter, for failing to disclose its 2003-04 long-distance phone
agreements with Haiti.
Courter’s resignation is the latest shake-up among aides and fund
raisers to the two presumptive presidential candidates. James Johnson
resigned last month from Senator Barack Obama’s campaign following
disclosures that he had received a mortgage on favorable terms from
Countrywide Financial. Samantha Power quit as a foreign policy adviser
to the Obama campaign in March after she was quoted as calling Senator
Hillary Clinton “a monster.” Recently Phil Gramm had his role as an
economic adviser to McCain reduced after he was quoted as playing down
the economy’s woes, saying that a “nation of whiners” was at fault.
Courter, a former New Jersey Republican congressman, was one of 20
McCain national finance co-chairmen, Before resigning yesterday, he had
been with the campaign since February 2007. He was a "Trailblazer" for
McCain, meaning he raised at least $100,000. The IDT PAC has
contributed $84,850 in 2008.
An IDT spokesman said: "Mr. Courter has the utmost respect for the
Senator and holds him in the highest esteem. As such, Mr. Courter did
not desire to see a personal business matter, wholly unrelated to the
Senator’s presidential bid, to detract from the core issues facing the
American people."
Calls to the McCain campaign were not immediately returned.
When the F.C.C. forced IDT to file its 2003-04 telecommunications
agreement with Haiti, it showed that IDT had negotiated an illegal long
distance rate, with payments made to a Turks & Caicos shell company
instead of a Haiti Telco account in Haiti. The Turks & Caicos
attorney who ran the shell company, Mount Salem, says it was owned by
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, then president of Haiti.
Testimony by a former IDT official, Michael Jewett, who was fired after
he objected to the deal, indicates that the payments to Mount Salem
were kickbacks to Aristide. Jewett has filed a lawsuit against the
company for unlawful dismissal.
The IDT spokesman said that it was his understanding that Mount Salem
was a subsidiary of Haiti Telco.
He said: "IDT has maintained for several years that it has operated
with professional and becoming conduct expected of any major US
multinational corporation. There is and always has been a relationship
of high standing maintained with our governmental channel partner,
Haiti Telco.
"As is the practice with any American multinational company conducting
business with foreign governments, business contracts are properly and
professionally negotiated by management. When a particular government
agency identifies in contract its preferred bank account for services
rendered, whether those be domestically based or in neighboring
financial centers in good standing with that specific country, we, like
any other American firm, honor such terms of contract."
Still, the deal raises a number of questions. If a foreign government
agency is corrupt and it gives a U.S. company a sweetheart deal, like
the below-market rate plan IDT sought to keep secret from the F.C.C.
and competitors, a payment to the bank of that government agency’s
choice might be considered a kickback and a violation of the Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act.
And suspicions would certainly be aroused if the bank was in a tax
haven and not in the government’s own country. Mount Salem’s
registration papers do not indicate it was a subsidiary of Haiti
TeleCo. Its only legal connection was to a Turks & Caicos law firm.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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