Взятки Стивену Пейну и в фонд библиотеки Дж. Буша

[Yilmaz]

Stephen Payne: a hotshot lobbyist who can get you into White House

A lobbyist offered access to Dick Cheney and other US leaders in return for a donation to the Bush library

The images on the tiny screen of Stephen Payne’s personal organiser told a clear story: this was a man with connections at the highest level.

One showed Payne uprooting dead trees side by side with George W Bush on the US president’s Texas ranch. Another depicted him skeet shooting next to Dick Cheney, the vice-president, and a third grinning for the camera alongside Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state.

The man on the other side of the table from Payne at the Lanesborough hotel in central London last week appeared impressed by the contents of the BlackBerry. He was a familiar figure, a Kazakh politician Payne knew as Eric Dos.

Dos, whose full name is Yerzhan Dosmukhamedov, told Payne that he was representing another foreign political figure who was looking to meet the top people in the US government.

Dos had good reason for believing that Payne could make it happen. Payne has accompanied Bush and Cheney on foreign trips to the Middle East and Asia, and he sits on the influential advisory council to the Department of Homeland Security. Payne is also president of a lobbying company, Worldwide Strategic Partners (WSP), which specialises in connecting business and political interests with the US government.

Dos told Payne that the politician needing help was Askar Akayev, the former president of the central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan.

Akayev, who is in exile in Moscow after being ousted from power three years ago in a people’s revolt, was seeking an endorsement from senior US figures in order to help rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the world, Dos told Payne.

“Who does he want to meet with in Washington?” asked the American. Dos replied: “Well of course, maybe the president of the United States, vice-president Cheney, to speak maybe directly to explain the situation in central Asia . . . To give his side of the story. These kind of things.”

“I think that some things could be done,” said Payne, adding that seeing Bush himself might be more difficult. With barely a pause, he continued:

“I think that the family, children, whatever [of Akayev], should probably look at making a contribution to the Bush library.

“It would be like, maybe a couple of hundred thousand dollars, or something like that, not a huge amount but enough to show that they’re serious.”

His mention of George W Bush’s proposed new library was significant. The privately funded facility, properly named the George W Bush Presidential Center, will be built at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and act as the president’s lasting legacy.

Establishing private libraries, which act as archives for presidential papers and are often incorporated with museums, is common practice for outgoing US heads of state.

However, the source of their funding has proved highly controversial, since, unlike US political campaigns, they are allowed to accept foreign donations. Suspicions of payments being made with strings attached have long circulated. Bush’s library had until now escaped such criticism.

What Payne did not know was that the third person at the Lanesborough meeting last Monday was an undercover Sunday Times reporter. Nor did he know that the meeting was being recorded.

The Sunday Times had initially approached Dos earlier for help in investigating corrupt practices in his homeland of Kazakhstan. Many business deals there are said to involve the discreet transfer of money between figures high up in the Kazakh regime and western companies.

Dos is exiled from Kazakhstan after setting up his own political party, Atameken, at the end of 2006. He was forced to flee following threats to his life.

Before that happened, however, he acted as an adviser to Timur Kulibayev, the billionaire son-in-law of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Kazakh president, and a man of considerable influence within the country.

Dos said that in the autumn of 2005 he had been asked by the Kazakh government, via Kulibayev, to arrange a visit by Cheney. The intention was to improve the country’s international standing.

Dos had spent several days negotiating with Payne. A deal was eventually agreed, he said, and he understood that a payment of $2m was passed, via a Kazakh oil and gas company, to Payne’s firm.

The following May, Cheney made a brief trip to Kazakhstan. His visit was remarked upon in the media at the time, both for the lavish praise which he publicly heaped on Nazarbayev and for the stark contrast between this and a speech he had made just a day earlier at a conference in Lithuania in which he had lambasted Russia for being insufficiently democratic. Now he was lauding Nazarbayev, who has effectively made himself president for life and in whose country it is an offence to criticise him.

“Why did Cheney castigate Russia’s imperfect democracy while saying not a word about Kazakhstan’s shameless travesty of the democratic system?” said one newspaper following the visit. “Cheney’s flattery of the Kazakh regime was sickening,” said another.

Dos believes some of the money paid to WSP may have found its way to “entities” connected to the Bush administration.

In order to test which channels might be available to foreigners seeking influence within the US, Dos agreed to approach Payne, at The Sunday Times’s request, with a fabricated story about Akayev wanting to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the world. Akayev was not aware of the approach to Payne.

Dos initially contacted Payne, who is based in Houston, Texas, via e-mail, and mentioned the possibility of making payments to “the Republican party or any other institutions affiliated with the Bushes”. Payne responded quickly, saying he was in London the following week.

The meeting at the Lanesborough began with Payne explaining that later that evening he was meeting a Conservative MP, Mark Pritchard, in order to sign him up as a paid “adviser” to WSP. Also due to meet Payne later was Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, apparently for separate discussions.

Pritchard’s value to Payne lay in his position as chairman of the House of Commons all- party Russia group. The MP, Payne said, had named his price, and it was acceptable to him.

So certain, in fact, was Payne that Pritchard would “cement the relationship” that night that he had already included him in his latest “confidential” brochure as one of WSP’s consultants.

Payne was keen to already involve his prospective latest recruit in the deal now on the table. “He’s going to make a trip to Russia I think in September,” he said. “Maybe we could get him and the former president [Akayev] together in for a sort of public meeting that could be released to the media.”

Once Payne had established from Dos that “Akayev” wanted to meet senior US figures, he gave an assessment of how likely this was to happen.

He said: “Cheney’s possible, definitely the national security adviser [stephen Hadley], definitely either Dr Rice or . . . I think a meeting with Dr Rice or the deputy secretary [John Negroponte] is possible.”

He added: “I think the main thing is that he [Akayev] comes, and he’s well received, that he meets with high-level people in the administration and most importantly we send positive statements made back from the administration about ‘This guy wasn’t such a bad guy’, [and] ‘Many people have done worse.’ Those kind of statements from a couple of people in the administration.”

On the issue of payment, Payne asked Dos whether he wanted a “contribution” made to his own political party, which was declined.

He then said: “I think that the budget that I’m going to be able to probably work with is probably going to be somewhere, including a significant contribution to the library, which I discussed, which would be about a third of it, somewhere between 600 and 750,000 [dollars] to do the things that we need to do because we’re going to need to spend a lot of time working on this, probably bringing in a couple of good consultants on a six-month basis to get this done.”

Minutes later Payne reiterated the Bush library payment, this time stating that a third of the total amount would be paid “directly” to it.

“That’s gonna be a show of ‘we’re interested, we’re your friends, we’re still friends’ because he [Akayev] met with President Bush, the things that they did in Afghanistan, this was important.”

In a subsequent exchange of e-mails Payne said he should do “some groundwork” before the library contribution was made.

He said that if the library donation were to be made via his company it would be declared under Akayev’s name. Unless, he added, “he wants to be anonymous for some reason”.

Following e-mail questioning from Dos about how Payne might pass on money paid to him by foreigners, Payne became increasingly cagey.

He said: “Anyone that tells you ‘I can deliver a US government action in exchange for specific funds’ is someone you will soon visit in prison . . . as that would be bribery in this country.”

“To be clear for Akayev’s sponsors, we will be making some large contributions [to the Republicans] this fall — the more funding we have the larger those contributions will be.”

He later added: “I can be a little more open by phone but still not as specific as when you and I meet face to face.”

When confronted, Payne insisted that the payment to the Bush library was not a “quid pro quo” and that his company had performed many “good things” for the world that were “ethical and always above board”.

He said that making a payment to the library would have had no impact without the client’s cause having merit and being advocated effectively.

Payne, who had confirmed to Dos that he had organised Cheney’s visit, denied having received any payment from any entity connected to Kazakhstan, although he admitted having been paid to help other foreign interests in the past, including people from Pakistan and Azerbaijan.

Of Pritchard, Payne would only say: “My thinking is that your story will probably give him a lot of second and third and fourth thoughts. I think that probably Mr Pritchard and I will probably not have a business relationship in future.”

Pritchard said: “I am not, and never have been, a consultant to Worldwide Strategic Partners.”

The White House said there was “categorically” no link between donations to Bush’s library and actions by his administration.

Kulibayev refused to comment.

Libraries ‘open to abuse’

Presidential libraries are becoming the subject of controversy in the United States over concerns that donations are being given in exchange for influence in the White House.

The libraries provide a record of a presidency where documents and artefacts are gathered. They also include a museum telling the story of a president’s life.

The George W Bush presidential library, which is to be built at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, will be the most expensive yet.

The first presidential library, founded by Franklin D Roosevelt in 1940, cost the equivalent of £4m today. The cost of the Bush library, which will be built next year, has been estimated at between £100m and £250m. Critics believe these institutions are “open to abuse” as they are exempt from the rules which govern donations to political parties and campaigns.

Josh Zaharoff, assistant director at Common Cause, a nonpartisan group seeking greater accountability in US politics, said: “It makes it very hard to know what they might be getting and how [the donors] might be taking advantage of that access to shape public policy and decisions.”

The Clinton library has been a subject of scandal, most prominently when Bill Clinton gave a pardon to Marc Rich, who was indicted in 1983 for evading taxes and setting up illegal oil deals with Iran. Rich’s ex-wife had given £225,000 to the library. Clinton has since insisted that there was no “quid pro quo”.

There are also concerns that the libraries could present a biased version of history.

Benjamin Hufbauer, professor of art history at Louisville University and author of a book on presidential libraries, said they were becoming “museums of propaganda”. He added: “They allow presidents to paint their own legacy.”

Unregistered work

American law states that anyone representing a foreigner for political reasons must register as an agent. Failure to do so is punishable by a fine or jail.

Payne and WSP do not appear to have registered much of their work for foreigners with the Department of Justice.

Payne said WSP’s work for Azerbaijan was nonpolitical, but its brochure says that it “implemented an aggressive media campaign to discredit the Azeri opposition”.

WSP did not register its work for an Uzbek politician as it was unpaid. The justice department says unpaid work must be registered.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle4322719.ece

кампанию по дискредитированию азерской оппозиции дело янков :lol: :lol: про взятки все написано как они переводились в фонд библиотеки Джорджа Буша ))) контроль СМИ чтобы повысить рейтинг Алиева среди американцев ))

Изменено 25 июля 2008 пользователем Yilmaz (история изменений)

[Yilmaz]

Стивен Пейн - сотрудник консультативного президента США вынужден подать в отставку. Скандал связанный с Ильхамом Алиевым расширяется. Дело по взяткам в фонд библиотеки Буша со стороны азербайджанских властей тщательно расследуется.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

http://www.metimes.com/Security/2008/07/15...e_charges/7bab/

Analysis: More Bush library sleaze charges

WASHINGTON, July 15 (UPI) -- A GOP lobbyist and fundraiser with close ties to the White House has quit a Homeland Security Department advisory committee following allegations of influence peddling and quid pro quo donations to the Bush presidential library.

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."

© 2008 United Press International. All Rights Reserved.

Изменено 30 июля 2008 пользователем Yilmaz (история изменений)

[Yilmaz]

ПОЛИТИЧЕСКИЙ "КЭШ"

"Оплот демократии" – США продают свою поддержку за вполне конкретные дензнаки

* "Демократия" исчисляется в $миллионах

* Охвачены не только США, но и Европа!

* Буш уйдет, а пейны останутся

История эта уже получила громкую огласку в том числе и в Армении. 13 июля лондонская газета The Sunday Times (воскресный выпуск Times) опубликовала статью о неком лоббисте из Вашингтона Стефене Пейне, который за очень большие деньги устраивал встречи с руководством Белого дома и продвигал интересы тех, кто эти деньги платил. В числе клиентов Пейна и его компании Worldwide Strategic Partners значились и руководители Азербайджана.

Лондонская газета опубликовала не только тайно записанную беседу Пейна с потенциальным (подставным) клиентом, но и конфиденциальную брошюру о его компании – именно здесь и фигурирует Азербайджан.

Пересказывать всю подоплеку этой истории нет смысла – статья из The Sunday Times подробно изложена в ереванской газете "Новое время" за 19 июля. Отметим лишь те подробности, которые касаются наших соседей и наглядно демонстрируют методы, которыми новоявленное государство Азербайджан прокладывает себе дорогу в мировой политике, не чураясь примитивного подкупа за продвижение своих интересов. Впрочем, если есть те, кто соглашается за большие деньги эти интересы продвигать, чего же не поделиться нефтедолларами?

Итак, фирма, возглавляемая Пейном, в период 2004 -2007гг. оказала азербайджанскому государству следующие слуги: организовала визит Алиева-младшего в Вашингтон и его встречу с Бушем, частную телефонную беседу с вице-президентом в преддверии президентских выборов в Азербайджане, а также ряд встреч министра иностранных дел этой страны в ходе визита в США. Кроме того, Пейн изрядно потрудился и над "демократическим" имиджем официального Баку, поработав с Хельсинкской комиссией над смягчением формулировок в прессе США после выборов в Азербайджане и, наоборот, дискредитацией оппозиции, а также организовав серию статей в прессе с последующим включением в архив Конгресса. Наконец, при посредничестве Пейна высокопоставленные вашингтонские чиновники выступили в прессе со статьями-дифирамбами в адрес официального Баку – в числе этих чиновников значатся сенатор Кен Хатчисон, бывший помощник госсекретаря Элизабет Джонс, кандидат в президенты на выборах 2000г., советник Рейгана Гэри Бауэр. Можно лишь догадываться – на какие суммы пришлось раскошелиться бакинским стратегам, чтобы оплатить услуги этих людей.

Платить приходилось, как выясняется, в копилку "библиотеки Буша" – так, мелочь, за пару-другую сотен тысяч лидер страны - мирового флагмана демократии соглашался встретиться с любым, готовым на политический "кэш". Куда большие суммы брал за свои услуги сам Пейн – по данным английской газеты, они достигали $600-750 тысяч. Алиев добивался от руководства США сразу нескольких целей: во-первых, полной и безоговорочной поддержки его как "демократического, перспективного" лидера, во-вторых, разгрома и дискредитации мельтешащей у него под ногами внутренней оппозиции, в-третьих, формирования положительного международного имиджа Азербайджана как страны, "приверженной принципам демократии, общечеловеческим ценностям и дружбе и братству с США", наконец, в-четверых, естественно, поддержки в вопросе Арцаха. Так, в 2005 году сенатор Бауэр, получивший солидную мзду от Баку, выступил против оказания гуманитарной помощи НКР – мол, это обидит Азербайджан, а "с друзьями так не обращаются". Рьяная "поборница демократии", а на деле, выходит, обыкновенная взяточница, Джонс в том же году употребила недопустимое для столь высокопоставленного лица выражение "сепаратистский преступный режим" в отношении руководства НКР.

Налицо фактически примитивный политический базар, в котором, если судить по купленному Алиевым "товару", продается и покупается любимая игрушка Соединенных Штатов – демократия и права и свободы, в том числе целых народов. И еще вопрос – кто в ней выглядит непригляднее: те, кто платил за заведомую ложь, или те, кому платили? Вовсе не случайно статья в лондонской газете вызвала в Баку негативную реакцию: ведь речь идет не о принятом во всем мире и весьма распространенном в США политическом лоббинге, а об обыкновенном подкупе высших должностных лиц за столь же тривиальную ложь. И выходит, что кроме нефти и нефтедолларов, Баку нечего предложить мировому сообществу, а значит, приходится все покупать. С одной оговоркой: все эти многомиллионные взятки были направлены отнюдь не на благо народа, а исключительно на укрепление собственной власти и обеспечение поддержки "лидерами мировой демократии" насквозь авторитарного и монархического по сути режима, не имеющего ничего общего с демократией, по сути дела – на полный карт-бланш алиевскому клану. Режиму, не только безжалостно попирающему демократию и права человека в собственной стране, но и откровенно милитаризованному и нацеленному на захват и аннексию чужих территорий и порабощение народов – как на территории современного Азербайджана, так и Арцаха.

Подозрения, что лидеры Азербайджана действуют самым примитивным и старым как мир способом, давно высказывались в прессе, причем не только в отношении американских лидеров, но и европейских. Слишком подозрительно и цинично выглядели в последние годы заявления некоторых известных деятелей, слишком много вопросов порождали принятые международными организациями некоторые документы. Теперь, в свете разоблачений лондонской газеты, многие сомнения подтверждаются. И становится ясным источник уверенности некоторых очевидно зарвавшихся азербайджанских политиков, которые даже не считают уже нужным скрывать, что вопрос с "демократией" в Азербайджане в отношениях с демократическими структурами «решен» окончательно.

Так, буквально на днях руководитель азербайджанской делегации в ПАСЕ С.Сеидов нагло заявил: "... в вопросе нарушения прав человека между Азербайджаном и Советом Европы не существует каких-либо недоразумений и недомолвок. Я вас уверяю, что между Советом Европы и Азербайджаном установлены прекрасные отношения. И если кто-то ждет, что со стороны этой европейской структуры будет оказано на нас давление, то он ошибается". Вспомним также недавнюю резолюцию мониторингового комитета ПАСЕ по Азербайджану, в которой черным по белому было сделано заявление, выглядевшее по меньшей мере странным: в Азербайджане, мол, не может быть демократии, пока не восстановлена "территориальная целостность". Может быть, The Sunday Times стоит провести расследование в стенах Совета Европы тоже?

Таким образом, можно сделать уверенный вывод о том, что Алиев решил свои личные проблемы с мировой "демократией": к нему с этим вопросом уже приставать не будут. Он также решил вопросы, связанные с предстоящими выборами. Да и не только с предстоящими: наследник явно заручился - по крайней мере на ближайшие годы - поддержкой своей семьи международными лидерами: для первой ханум добыты – надо полагать, тем же путем, ибо иного в арсенале не имеется - многочисленные звания и титулы, дочери президента тоже усердно создается имидж и широкое поле деятельности, сын еще маловат для "имиджа", но тут все еще впереди. Поддержка мировых держав и лидеров агрессивному и не скрывающему своей милитаристских устремлений режиму обеспечена, а значит, и дальше вся политика в регионе будет делаться исключительно одними нефтедолларами – о "демократии" в Азербайджане американские и европейские дяди будут вспоминать, только когда придет время очередной подкормки.

Однако куда опаснее другое: решив внутренние вопросы, Алиев, несомненно, примется за подготовку тем же манером почвы для агрессии в отношении Арцаха и Армении. Здесь, правда, ему придется несколько труднее, да и нефть, говорят, уже на исходе – во всяком случае аналитики поговаривают о том, что время "расцвета" подходит к концу и азербайджанскую экономику ожидает глубокий спад. К тому же вопрос намного серьезнее: одно дело – петь дифирамбы и словесно поддерживать несостоявшегося "демократа", закрывать глаза на его пакости внутри страны и репрессии в отношении собственных граждан или даже принимать непонятные документы, и совсем другое – санкционировать захватническую войну и разжигать огонь военных конфликтов и без того бурлящего региона.

Но сомневаться, что для этого со стороны Баку будут предприняты все усилия, не приходится. В конце концов, Буш уйдет, но Пейн и ему подобные останутся – а значит, для алиевых всегда останется грязная лазейка для решения вопросов в свою пользу. Но всех ли?

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