Sen. McCain's campaign aides link him to some interesting people and places
"In addition to Davis and Ferry, the McCain campaign's top foreign-policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, has previously lobbied for the Eastern European governments of Latvia and Macedonia, as well as for Georgia and Taiwan. McCain campaign senior adviser Charles Black's foreign clientele has included the corruption-plagued nation of Equatorial Guinea and a Moscow think tank run by Leonid Reiman, a telecommunications minister under then-Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reiman has reportedly come under scrutiny by German prosecutors probing allegations of money laundering.
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"Some policy analysts contend that past dealings by Davis, Ferry, and others in the campaign raise potential conflicts for McCain. These critics cite foreign clients that advisers represented before joining the Republican's presidential campaign, and meetings that they arranged in 2006 and 2007 for the senator with figures including Italian con man Raffaello Follieri, who recently pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering, and Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
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"McCain has touted himself as one of the most ethical people in the Senate, but he has people around him whose lobbying and consulting efforts and receipt of monies present conflicts of interest," says Larry Wilkerson, a professor of government at the College of William & Mary who was a top aide to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell.
"When you take central advice from people who have advocated for foreign interests not necessarily congruent with American interests, it's really naive to assume that the advice you're receiving is not influenced by their previous work," Wilkerson adds.
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"But separating those private interests from a campaign whose slogan is "Country first" can sometimes be tricky, analysts say.
"For someone who claims to be a maverick, McCain has an awful lot of people around him who have done the bidding of foreign governments or other foreign interests," says Bill Buzenberg, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity."
source:
National Journal Magazine - McCain Aides' Foreign Work Raises Eyebrows
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