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Last Updated: Jul 16, 2008 - 9:03:44 AM |
Department spokeswoman Laura Keehner confirmed to United Press
International that Stephen Payne was asked to resign after being
surreptitiously videotaped by a British newspaper apparently offering
to arrange meetings with senior administration officials in return for
a six-figure fee, including a quarter-million-dollar donation to the
library.
"The department asked him to step down" from his post on the Secure
Borders and Open Doors Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Advisory
Council, Keehner said, declining to comment on the reasons.
The news comes as questions began to emerge about whether Payne
properly disclosed his work on behalf of a number of foreign entities
as required by federal law.
Also Tuesday, congressional investigators began to probe the charges,
first made in the London Sunday Times last weekend, that Payne offered
to arrange meetings with Vice President Richard Cheney, national
security adviser Stephen Hadley and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
in exchange for the donation.
Payne believed he was meeting with an intermediary for the exiled
former President of Kyrgyzstan Askar Akayev, ousted in a people
power-type revolution three years ago, but in fact, he had been set up
by the middleman, Yerzhan Dosmukhamedov, known as Eric Dos, a Kazakh
politician with whom he had worked before, and was secretly taped by an
undercover reporter.
"If true, this report raises serious concerns about the ways in which
foreign interests might be secretly influencing our government through
large donations to the library," House Oversight Committee Chairman
Henry Waxman, D-Calif., wrote to Payne. Current law places little
restriction on the solicitation of funds for presidential libraries and
imposes no disclosure requirements. "As a result," wrote Waxman, "a
presidential library can solicit secret donations from companies and
foreign interests that seek to surreptitiously influence government
action."
A spokesman for the Bush Library Foundation told the Dallas Morning
News that no donations would be accepted from foreign sources until
after the president had left office.
"It's safe to say the things that are alleged in this story would never
be encouraged or allowed," the paper quoted spokesman Dan Bartlett as
saying.
Payne told UPI in an e-mailed statement that the Sunday Times had
entrapped him, that there was no quid pro quo for the donation he
suggested, and that he had done nothing wrong.
He said he had resigned from the advisory council because "under the
current circumstances there will be too many distractions for me to
successfully focus on (its) important work."
But the story has also raised questions about Payne's apparent failure
to register much of his work on behalf of foreign entities with the
Justice Department, as required by the Foreign Agent Registration Act.
In a promotional brochure Payne provided to Dos, which he later said
was a draft, and on a page of his Web site that was removed after the
story broke, the lobbyist touted his work for several foreign entities,
including the governments of Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan;
and an Uzbek opposition leader called Muhammad Salih.
Payne said he did not have to register, since he was working on behalf
of commercial entities, not governments.
"I believe that we are in compliance with FARA regulations," Payne
wrote in his e-mail to UPI. "We did not need to FARA register as the
basis for our work was commercial projects in these countries. We
checked with the Department of Justice's FARA division and were
informed that we did not need to register for these commercial
projects."
But the brochure states that his company, Houston-based Worldwide
Strategic Partners Inc., "arranged for the president of Azerbaijan to
visit the United States and meet with President Bush ... (and) arranged
a private phone call between the vice president of the United States
and the president of Azerbaijan." It also states that he "developed"
and placed a series of op-ed pieces "written by influential U.S.
officials to boost positive U.S. public perception about Azerbaijan."
"I cannot envisage a set of circumstances where those activities would
not be covered" by FARA, campaign finance lawyer and lobbying
disclosure expert Brett Kappel told UPI, adding that failing to
register as required was a felony punishable by up to five years in
jail.
Kappel, a lawyer with the Washington firm of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and
Pease, called FARA "the most far-reaching lobbying disclosure law in
the United States, requiring the most extensive and detailed
disclosures."
He said the commercial exemption, which the law says covers "private
and non-political activities in furtherance of the bona fide trade or
commerce" of a foreign entity, was "a narrow exemption originally
intended to cover foreign corporations doing business in the United
States."
"What is 'private and non-political' about a phone call with the vice
president?" he asked. "Lobbying on foreign policy issues is not exempt
merely because a foreign commercial interest is involved."
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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