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John
McCain
- 
Vicki
Iseman - 
Corporate
- 
Government
- 
Vacations
- 
Jets
- 
Real
Estate - 
Television
Networks - 
Media
- 
Communications
- 
Law
- 
Politics
- 
History
- Phoenix
- 
Arizona
- 2008
Election - "For
McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk."
... "Even as he [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Arizona
Senator John McCain] has vowed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards,
his confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him to
potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest." ... "Mr. McCain promised,
for example, never to fly directly from Washington to Phoenix [Arizona],
his hometown, to avoid the impression of self-interest because he sponsored
a law that opened the route nearly a decade ago. But like other lawmakers,
he often flew on the corporate jets of business executives seeking his
support, including the media moguls Rupert Murdoch, Michael R. Bloomberg
and Lowell W. Paxson, Ms. [lobbyist Vicki] Iseman’s client. (Last year
he voted to end the practice.)" ... "Mr. McCain helped found a nonprofit
group to promote his personal battle for tighter campaign finance rules.
But he later resigned as its chairman after news reports disclosed that
the group was tapping the same kinds of unlimited corporate contributions
he opposed, including those from companies seeking his favor. He has criticized
the cozy ties between lawmakers and lobbyists, but is relying on corporate
lobbyists to donate their time running his presidential race and recently
hired a lobbyist to run his Senate office. " ... "During Mr. McCain’s four
years in the House [of Representatives], Mr. [Charles] Keating, his family
and his business associates contributed heavily to his political campaigns.
The banker gave Mr. McCain free rides on his private jet, a violation of
Congressional ethics rules (he later said it was an oversight and paid
for the trips). They vacationed together in the Bahamas. And in 1986, the
year Mr. McCain was elected to the Senate, his wife joined Mr. Keating
in investing in an Arizona shopping mall." ... "Mr. Keating had taken over
the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association and used its federally insured
deposits to gamble on risky real estate and other investments. He pressed
Mr. McCain and other lawmakers to help hold back federal banking regulators."
... "For years, Mr. McCain complied. At Mr. Keating’s request, he wrote
several letters to regulators, introduced legislation and helped secure
the nomination of a Keating associate to a banking regulatory board." ...
"By early 1987, though, the thrift was careering toward disaster. Mr. McCain
agreed to join several senators, eventually known as the Keating Five,
for two private meetings with regulators to urge them to ease up." ...
"When Lincoln went bankrupt in 1989 — one of the biggest collapses of the
savings and loan crisis, costing taxpayers $3.4 billion — the Keating Five
became infamous. The scandal sent Mr. Keating to prison and ended the careers
of three senators, who were censured in 1991 for intervening. Mr. McCain,
who had been a less aggressive advocate for Mr. Keating than the others,
was reprimanded only for “poor judgment” and was re-elected the next year.
" ... "A champion of deregulation, Mr. McCain wrote letters in 1998 and
1999 to the Federal Communications Commission urging it to uphold marketing
agreements allowing a television company to control two stations in the
same city, a crucial issue for Glencairn Ltd. [Limited], one of Ms. Iseman’s
clients. He introduced a bill to create tax incentives for minority ownership
of stations; Ms. Iseman represented several businesses seeking such a program.
And he twice tried to advance legislation that would permit a company to
control television stations in overlapping markets, an important issue
for Paxson." ... "In late 1999, Ms. Iseman asked Mr. McCain’s staff to
send a letter to the commission to help Paxson, now Ion Media Networks,
on another matter. Mr. Paxson was impatient for F.C.C. approval of a television
deal, and Ms. Iseman acknowledged in an e-mail message to The Times that
she had sent to Mr. McCain’s staff information for drafting a letter urging
a swift decision." ... "Mr. McCain complied. He sent two letters to the
commission, drawing a rare rebuke for interference from its chairman."
(1, 2,
3,
4)
-By Jim
Rutenberg, Marilyn W. Thompson, David
D. Kirkpatrick and Stephen
Labaton with contributions by Barclay Walsh and Kitty Bennett
-NYTimes
John
McCain
- Vicki
Iseman - Corporate
- Government
- Television
Stations - Media
- Communications
- Law
- Politics
- Jet
- Travel
- History
- Arizona
- 
Florida
- 
Pennsylvania
- 2008
Election - "McCain:
Reports on lobbyist a "smear"." ... "The story alleges
that McCain wrote letters and pushed legislation involving television station
ownership that would have benefited [lobbyist Vicki] Iseman's clients."
... "In late 1999, [Arizona Republican Senator and 2008 Election Republican
Presidential Candidate John] 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 [Pennsylvania].
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." -By
Libby Quaid -AP
via -Star-Telegram.com
Secrecy
- 
US
- 
Overseas
- Torture
- Flights
- Prisoners
- Transport
- Trip
- Corporate
- Government
- Law
- 
Intelligence
- Politics
- 
California
- "Secrecy
plea ties up torture flights case." ... "A lawsuit
accusing a San Jose [California] flight-planning company of helping the
CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] transport prisoners to overseas torture
chambers must be dismissed because it would risk exposing state secrets,
a [Republican President] Bush administration lawyer argued Tuesday to a
federal judge, who seemed to reluctantly agree." ... "The five plaintiffs
can't prove that Jeppesen International Trip Planning subjected them to
wrongful imprisonment and torture without first showing that the company
aided the CIA, that foreign governments collaborated, and that the so-called
extraordinary rendition program subjected them to brutal treatment, Justice
Department attorney Michael Abate said at a hearing in San Jose. Each one
of those assertions depends on classified information that can't be aired
in court, he said." ... ""Without the information in question, this case
cannot be litigated," Abate told U.S. [United States] District Judge James
Ware. The result of allowing the government to keep its secrets out of
court "can be harsh," he said, but under the state-secrets doctrine recognized
by the U.S. Supreme Court since 1953, "private parties bear that burden
on behalf of society."" ... "Ware did not issue a ruling after the 70-minute
hearing, and made it clear that he considered some aspects of the government's
position to be extreme. He questioned Abate's argument that the imprisonment
and interrogation of each plaintiff remained an official secret, even though
the men knew how they were treated." ... ""If they're in the program, the
secret's disclosed, at least to them," the judge said. When Abate insisted
that legal precedents require official government confirmation to remove
the veil of secrecy, Ware said the doctrine known as the state-secrets
privilege "should be called a state privilege to do whatever it wants.""
-Bob Egelko -SFGate.com
Rudy
Giuliani
- 
Police
- Politics
- Trips
- Apartments
- 
New
York
- Indigent
- Lawyers
- US
- 
Qatar
- 
Terrorism
- 2008
Election - "Giuliani
Defends Girlfriend's Expenses." ... "Former New York
Mayor [and 2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Rudy Giuliani
on Sunday defended the expenses incurred by his security detail as he was
beginning an extramarital affair with current wife Judith Nathan, saying
police made the decision after she had received threats." ... "Giuliani
in recent weeks has faced a barrage of questions about New York police
security costs for his trysts with Nathan and about his business clients,
which have included the Persian Gulf country of Qatar. The Gulf state is
a U.S. ally, but allegations have been made that some prominent Qatari
officials sheltered suspected Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
" ... "Records first reported by Politico.com last month showed repeated
trips between 1999 and 2002 to Long Island, where Nathan had a condominium.
Giuliani's first trip was from Aug. 31 to Sept. 1, 1999 - months before
he acknowledged the breakdown of his second marriage in the spring of 2000."
... "Security costs for those trips were charged to agencies like the New
York City Loft Board, which regulates loft apartments and was billed $34,000.
The Office for People with Disabilities was charged $10,000, while the
Assigned Counsel Administrative Office, which provides lawyers for indigent
defendants, was charged roughly $400,000. " -By Libby
Quaid -AP
via -CBSNews
Secret
- Rudy
Giuliani
- Cops
- 
Car
- 
Family
- Travel
- 
Gas
- 
Account
- New
York
- Pennsylvania
- 
Christmas
- 2008
Election - "City
taxpayers picked up tab for Judith Giuliani's visit to kin in Pennsylvania."
... "In the fall of 2001, [New York City, New York] city cops chauffeured
[2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Rudy Giuliani's then-mistress,
Judith Nathan, to her parents' Pennsylvania home 130 miles away on the
taxpayers' dime." ... "Records show that city cops refueled at an ExxonMobil
station down the road from Nathan's childhood home in Hazleton on Oct.
20, 2001, while Giuliani stayed behind in New York attending 9/11 funerals."
... "A similar receipt pops up at a different Hazleton gas station two
months later, when Nathan apparently went home for a pre-Christmas visit
with her parents." ... "The records show that - in addition to using [New
York] City Hall funds to take Giuliani and Nathan to 11 secret trysts in
the Hamptons, as has been previously reported - taxpayers were paying to
ferry Nathan on long-distance trips without Giuliani, now a Republican
contender for President." ... "The expenses were all paid with a City Hall
American Express card funded with money from mayoral office units that
had nothing to do with travel or security." -By Michael
Saul and David Saltonstall -NYDailyNews.com
Secret
- 
