The Wife U.S. Republican John McCain Callously Left Behind

By Sharon Churcher
Daily Telegraph
June 8, 2008

Now that Hillary Clinton has at last formally withdrawn from the race for the White House, the eyes of America and the world will focus on Barack Obama and his Republican rival Senator John McCain.

While Obama will surely press his credentials as the embodiment of the American dream – a handsome, charismatic young black man who was raised on food stamps by a single mother and who represents his country’s future – McCain will present himself as a selfless, principled war hero whose campaign represents not so much a battle for the presidency of the United States, but a crusade to rescue the nation’s tarnished reputation.

McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children.

But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children.

And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain’s first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.

She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.

But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.

When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons

had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.

Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.

Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.

For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.

Carol insists she remains on good terms with her ex-husband, who agreed as part of their divorce settlement to pay her medical costs for life. ‘I have no bitterness,’

she says. ‘My accident is well recorded. I had 23 operations, I am five inches shorter than I used to be and I was in hospital for six months. It was just awful, but it wasn’t the reason for my divorce.

‘My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens…it just does.’

Some of McCain’s acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field’. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.

McCain was then earning little more than £25,000 a year as a naval officer, while his new father-in-law, Jim Hensley, was a multi-millionaire who had impeccable political connections.

He first met Carol in the Fifties while he was at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. He was a privileged, but rebellious scion of one of America’s most distinguished military dynasties – his father and grandfather were both admirals.

But setting out to have a good time, the young McCain hung out with a group of young officers who called themselves the ‘Bad Bunch’.

His primary interest was women and his conquests ranged from a knife-wielding floozy nicknamed ‘Marie, the Flame of Florida’ to a tobacco heiress.

Carol fell into his fast-living world by accident. She escaped a poor upbringing in Philadelphia to become a successful model, married an Annapolis classmate of McCain’s and had two children – Douglas and Andrew – before renewing what one acquaintance calls ‘an old flirtation’ with McCain.

It seems clear she was bowled over by McCain’s attention at a time when he was becoming bored with his playboy lifestyle.

‘He was 28 and ready to settle down and he loved Carol’s children,’ recalled another Annapolis graduate, Robert Timberg, who wrote The Nightingale’s Song, a bestselling biography of McCain and four other graduates of the academy.

The couple married and McCain adopted Carol’s sons. Their daughter, Sidney, was born a year later, but domesticity was clearly beginning to bore McCain – the couple were regarded as ‘fixtures on the party circuit’ before McCain requested combat duty in Vietnam at the end of 1966.

He was assigned as a bomber pilot on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin.

What follows is the stuff of the McCain legend. He was shot down over Hanoi in October 1967 on his 23rd mission over North Vietnam and was badly beaten by an angry mob when he was pulled, half-drowned from a lake.

Over the next five-and-a-half years in the notorious Hoa Loa Prison he was regularly tortured and mistreated.

It was in 1969 that Carol went to spend the Christmas holiday – her third without McCain – at her parents’ home. After dinner, she left to drop off some presents at a friend’s house.

It wasn’t until some hours later that she was discovered, alone and in terrible pain, next to the wreckage of her car. She had been hurled through the windscreen.

After her first series of life-saving operations, Carol was told she may never walk again, but when doctors said they would try to get word to McCain about her injuries, she refused, insisting: ‘He’s got enough problems, I don’t want to tell him.’

H. Ross Perot, a billionaire Texas businessman, future presidential candidate and advocate of prisoners of war, paid for her medical care.

When McCain – his hair turned prematurely white and his body reduced to little more than a skeleton – was released in March 1973, he told reporters he was overjoyed to see Carol again.

But friends say privately he was ‘appalled’ by the change in her appearance. At first, though, he was kind, assuring her: ‘I don’t look so good myself. It’s fine.’

He bought her a bungalow near the sea in Florida and another former PoW helped him to build a railing so she could pull herself over the dunes to the water.

‘I thought, of course, we would live happily ever after,’ says Carol. But as a war hero, McCain was moving in ever-more elevated circles.

Through Ross Perot, he met Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California. A sympathetic Nancy Reagan took Carol under her wing.

But already the McCains’ marriage had begun to fray. ‘John started carousing and running around with women,’ said Robert Timberg.

McCain has acknowledged that he had girlfriends during this time, without going into details. Some friends blame his dissatisfaction with Carol, but others give some credence to her theory of a mid-life crisis.

He was also fiercely ambitious, but it was clear he would never become an admiral like his illustrious father and grandfather and his thoughts were turning to politics.

In 1979 – while still married to Carol – he met Cindy at a cocktail party in Hawaii. Over the next six months he pursued her, flying around the country to see her. Then he began to push to end his marriage.

Carol and her children were devastated. ‘It was a complete surprise,’ says Nancy Reynolds, a former Reagan aide.

‘They never displayed any difficulties between themselves. I know the Reagans were quite shocked because they loved and respected both Carol and John.’

Another friend added: ‘Carol didn’t fight him. She felt her infirmity made her an impediment to him. She justified his actions because of all he had gone through. She used to say, “He just wants to make up for lost time.”’

Indeed, to many in their circle the saddest part of the break-up was Carol’s decision to resign herself to losing a man she says she still adores.

Friends confirm she has remained friends with McCain and backed him in all his campaigns. ‘He was very generous to her in the divorce but of course he could afford to be, since he was marrying Cindy,’ one observed.

McCain transferred the Florida beach house to Carol and gave her the right to live in their jointly-owned townhouse in the Washington suburb of Alexandria. He also agreed to pay her alimony and child support.

A former neighbour says she subsequently sold up in Florida and Washington and moved in 2003 to Virginia Beach. He said: ‘My impression was that she found the new place easier to manage as she still has some difficulties walking.’

Meanwhile McCain moved to Arizona with his new bride immediately after their 1980 marriage. There, his new father-in-law gave him a job and introduced him to local businessmen and political powerbrokers who would smooth his passage to Washington via the House of Representatives and Senate.

And yet despite his popularity as a politician, there are those who won’t forget his treatment of his first wife.

Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans’ rights, said: ‘I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit.

‘When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it.

‘Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better.

‘This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol.’

One old friend of the McCains said: ‘Carol always insists she is not bitter, but I think that’s a defence mechanism. She also feels deeply in his debt because in return for her agreement to a divorce, he promised to pay for her medical care for the rest of her life.’

Carol remained resolutely loyal as McCain’s political star rose. She says she agreed to talk to The Mail on Sunday only because she wanted to publicise her support for the man who abandoned her.

Indeed, the old Mercedes that she uses to run errands displays both a disabled badge and a sticker encouraging people to vote for her ex-husband. ‘He’s a good guy,’ she assured us. ‘We are still good friends. He is the best man for president.’

But Ross Perot, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel – even by the standards of modern politics.

‘McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory,’ he said.

‘After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.’

McCain Pressed On Past Marital Infidelities During Town Hall

By Sam Stein
The Huffington Post
June 4, 2008

During a town hall meeting on Monday, Sen. John McCain was asked, very subtlety, to address how his own marital infidelities - a taboo subject of sorts on the campaign trail - comport with his pledge to protecting the sanctity of marriage by opposing such unions among same-sex couples.

The Senator avoided the question, not, it seemed, out of political deftness, but simply because the topic was not directly put forward. But it will be curious to see whether this chapter in McCain’s background does in fact become a topic of discussion.

Upon returning from Vietnam, McCain received news that his wife had been in a terrible car accident, which, in subsequent surgery, had led to the loss of inches in height and crippling injuries. The marriage gradually fell apart. After a bit of philandering, he met his second and current wife, Cindy. As the New York Times reported,

As John McCain puzzled over his career, he also found himself sorting out his marriage.
In the Navy, many considered it appropriate for a swashbuckling pilot to pick up a girlfriend here or there, and stories began to spread about Mr. McCain and young women. But Mr. McCain was discreet in his indiscretions: he did not carouse with young women on Capitol Hill or take dates to the Monocle, a bar near the Senate that he often went to, and he did not drink himself silly.

”Some people in politics need a drink to loosen up,” said Mr. Hart, noting that he had never seen Mr. McCain even close to drunk. ”John’s loose all the time. He never needed it.”

Mr. McCain has acknowledged running around with women and accepted responsibility for the breakup of the marriage, without going into details. But his supporters and his biographer, Robert Timberg, all suggest that the marriage had already effectively ended and that the couple had separated by the time he met Cindy, his present wife.

During his stop in Nashville on Wednesday, McCain was asked if he was “going to talk about” his “own situation,” in the context of how infidelity is as serious a threat to the sanctity of marriage as is gay unions.

“There is nothing,” the questioner asked, “you see long-term couples splitting up, it’s, it’s just crazy…I know that you, your own situation, you’re going to have to address that in the campaign. Infidelity is just a terrible cancer on this country….and I think if we’re going to talk about…gay marriage, it has to be in the context of the preservation of marriage.”

McCain drifted around the personal implication by reiterating his opposition to the marriage of same-sex couples. “I just believe in the sanctity and the unique status of marriage between a man and a woman.,” he said to cheers in the crowd.

McCain Linked to Influence Peddling Claim

Broadcaster says nothing happened until he hired lobbyist, made donation

WorldNetDaily
February 25, 2008

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee for president, has been linked by documents and testimony to another alleged case of what critics are calling influence peddling, this time involving a minority broadcaster in Pittsburgh.

The New York Times last week published a major, controversial expose that insinuated McCain had a romantic relationship with telecommunications lobbyist Vicki Iseman, whose clients had a large stake in decisions made by the Senate Commerce Committeee McCain headed. The report, however, was denied by McCain and widely discredited for lack of evidence.

Now come the allegations from groups including the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics in Washington.

They concern Eddie Edwards, an African-American broadcaster who wanted to get the Federal Communications Commission off his back but found little support in Washington for his situation a few years ago.

The then-president of Glencairn Broadcasting Properties had been using so-called “local marketing agreements” with other broadcasters to get around FCC rules forbidding one company from owning two TV stations in the same city.

But the FCC planned to close the broadcast-ownership loophole, and Edwards sought the help of politicians.

According to his own testimony, it wasn’t until he decided to give $4,000 in personal donations to Sen. John McCain, who at the time was chairman of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, and another $40,000 to a then 30-year-old Iseman, that anything happened.

Edwards confirmed in a recent interview that he was only able to get an audience with McCain after retaining Iseman to lobby on his behalf.

McCain’s campaign maintains the senator’s efforts to retain the loophole were not done in response to any specific request. His campaign did not respond to specific WND requests for comment on the latest issue.

Shortly after Edwards retained Iseman and made a donation to McCain, the senator fired off three letters to the FCC regarding the issue, including one in which he threatened to try to overhaul the licensing agency if it closed the loophole.

After that word from the senator, who then was chairman of the committee that oversaw broadcasting and telecommunications and had sway over the FCC budget, the agency backed off.

McCain has crusaded against lobbyists and special interests over the course of his career. Most recently, he rebuked Bush administration officials and fellow Republican lawmakers over the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

But records reviewed by WND show that Edwards, who normally contributed to Democrats, gave $4,000 to McCain at the time of the senator’s letter-writing campaign.

He also paid Iseman’s firm an initial $40,000 to lobby the Senate specifically regarding “local marketing agreements” and “minority broadcast issues,” according to page one and page two of a 1999 Senate lobbying report filed by Iseman.

Government watchdog groups, including the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, say the case smacks of influence-peddling, and mirrors the previously reported situation involving McCain, Iseman and another broadcaster also operating TV stations in Pittsburgh.

The Pittsburgh connection

In that case, as McCain was raising money for a presidential bid in 1999, broadcaster Lowell “Bud” Paxson sought McCain’s help with the FCC, which seemed to be leaning against his quest to acquire a Pittsburgh TV station.

Like Edwards, Paxson hired Iseman for an initial $40,000. He also gave generously to McCain’s campaign.

FEC records show Paxson and his family, at the time, contributed $9,000 in political donations to McCain. He and his wife donated an additional $10,000 to McCain’s PAC, Straight Talk America.

Moreover, executives of Paxson Communications (now Ion Media Networks) kicked in another $11,000 directly to McCain’s campaign, bringing the total in contributions at the time to $30,000. (In 2003, Paxson and his wife gave another $6,000 to McCain.)

Paxson says Iseman arranged a one-on-one meeting with McCain, a meeting his campaign denies took place – although McCain himself admitted in a 2002 sworn deposition involving the case that “I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue” and “I spoke with him, yes.”

At Paxson’s and Iseman’s request, McCain pressured the FCC in two separate letters to hurry a decision on the broadcaster’s acquisition – an intervention the FCC chairman at the time called “highly unusual.”

Records show that the day before McCain sent a second letter to the FCC on Dec. 10, 1999, Paxson flew McCain on his private four-engine jet to Florida, where McCain attended a fundraiser aboard a yacht in West Palm Beach arranged by Iseman and hosted by the head of a cruise line she also represented.

Carnival Cruise Lines chief executive Micky Arison, another client of Iseman, chipped in $1,000 at the time for McCain’s campaign, FEC records show. (In 2006, he gave an additional $1,000 to Straight Talk America.)

Then, after the fundraiser and the letter was sent, Paxson flew the senator on his company jet from Florida to Washington.

Five days after receiving McCain’s second letter, the FCC voted 3 to 2 to approve the acquisition deal. Paxson Communications, based in West Palm Beach at the time was the largest owner of independent TV stations.

Asked in the deposition if Iseman or other lobbyists accompanied him on the corporate jet trips, McCain replied: “I do not recall.”

However, Iseman joined McCain on a Paxson jet at least in February 1999, according to reports, when they attended a small fund-raising dinner with several of her clients at Arison’s home in the Miami area.

While McCain acknowledges in the deposition that “there could possibly be an appearance of corruption,” he insists he “did not ask the FCC to act favorably for Mr. Paxson” but simply pressured it to hurry a decision, and therefore “was not doing anything wrong in any way.”

According to documents (page one and page two, reviewed by WND, Iseman and her lobbying firm, Alcalde & Fay, currently are billing Paxson at four times the rate – $160,000 – at which the company was billed last decade.

McCain has legislated in favor of several other Iseman clients on issues dealing primarily with minority broadcast ownership. Here is the full list of her clients, who have contributed close to $100,000 to his campaigns, gleaned from Senate lobbying disclosure reports she and her firm have filed:

* American Maglev Technology
* AMFM Inc. (Clear Channel Communications) Arison Family Trust (founder, Carnival Cruise Lines) AstraZeneca BearingPoint Inc. CACI International Inc.
* CanWest
* Capstar Broadcasting Partners (Clear Channel) Carnival Corp.
* City of Miami, Fla.
* City of Palm Springs, Calif.
* Click Radio
* Computer Sciences Corp.
* Future Leaders of America
* Glencairn Broadcasting Properties (Pittsburgh) HFF Inc. (Pittsburgh) Hillsborough County, Fla.
* Hispanic Broadcasting Inc.
* Homer-Center School District (Pittsburgh area) i2Telecom
* International Indiana University of Pennsylvania Foundation (Pittsburgh area)
* Ion Media Networks (formerly Paxson Communications)
* Jovan Broadcasting Latona Associates Marin County, Calif.
* National Stroke Association
* Operation Warm
* Paxson Communications (now Ion Media)
* PriceWaterhouseCoopers
* RP International
* Saga Communications Inc.
* Sinclair Broadcast Group (in partnership with Glencairn)
* Telemundo Network Group Total Living Network Tulare County, Calif.
* Univision Communications
* Walter Industries

In addition, Iseman has acquired a number of major Hispanic-owned businesses as clients. McCain sponsored a “comprehensive immigration reform” bill that would grant amnesty to millions of Hispanic immigrants living illegally in the U.S., even though Republicans in his border state of Arizona strenuously opposed the measure.

Asked in last week’s press conference when he last had contact with Iseman, McCain replied: “It was several months ago; I think I ran into her at some event.” He did not elaborate.

McCain’s History of Abusing the Public Trust

By John LeBoutillier
US Veteran Dispatch
February 2008

John McCain can deny the latest allegations all he wants. He can try to push-back by blaming everything on the New York Times. And he can state, as he did Thursday morning, that in his 50 years of public service, he has never violated the public trust.

Oh, really?

How about back in 1974’s when then Commander John McCain - fresh off his 5 ½ years as a POW in North Vietnam - was given his first command in Jacksonville, Florida?

McCain, according to Robert Timberg in his book, The Nightingale’s Song, was transferred to Jacksonville as the executive officer of Replacement Air Group 174. A few months later, he assumed command of the RAG, which trained pilots and crews for carrier deployments. The assignment was controversial, some calling it favoritism, a sop to the famous son of a famous father and grandfather, since he had not first commanded a squadron, the usual career path.”

While Executive Officer and later as Squadron Commander, the married McCain used his authority to arrange frequent flights that allowed him to carouse with subordinates and “engage in extra-marital affairs.”

This was a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice rules against adultery and fraternization with subordinates. But, as with all his other past behaviors, McCain was never penalized; instead he always got away with his transgressions Timberg wrote, “Off duty, usually on routine cross-country flights to Yuma and El Centro, John started carousing and running around with women. To make matters worse, some of the women with whom he was linked by rumor were subordinates . . . At the time the rumors were so widespread that, true or not, they became part of McCain’s persona, impossible not to take note of.”

In early 1977, Admiral Jim Holloway, Chief of Naval Operations had to deal with the embarrassment caused by McCain’s behavior. So the Admiral transferred McCain from his command position “to Washington as the number-two man in the Navy’s Senate liaison office. McCain was promptly given total control of the office. It wasn’t long before the “fun loving and irreverent” McCain had turned the liaison office into a “late-afternoon gathering spot where senators and staffers, usually from the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, would drop in for a drink and the chance to unwind.”

Ethics complaint over attacking a grieving woman

In 1984, as a Member of the House of Representatives, John McCain gave a speech in Congressman Duncan Hunter’s San Diego district.

At the end of the speech a woman approached Representative McCain and introduced herself as the wife of a Marine pilot shot down and still missing in Southeast Asia. She asked Congressman McCain if he could help her find information on her husband’s case.

Eyeing the attractive woman, the married McCain replied, Why don’t you ride with us and have dinner?

Congressman Hunter and an aide sat in the front seat of the car; McCain and this woman in the back as they drove to Hunter’s house. Not long into the short ride, McCain ran his hand up the woman’s skirt. Stunned, she pushed him away and resisted his advances. He continued trying to grab her, even after she moved as far away from him as possible.

As this time, McCain’s wife, Cindy, was pregnant.

Disgusted over his behavior she left as soon as they arrived at Duncan Hunter’s place. She promptly told the two Vietnam veterans who had originally encouraged her to try to see McCain about her missing husband’s case that night.

Years later a Senate Ethics Committee complaint was filed over this incident. In that complaint, the woman was quoted as saying that Congressman McCain used unreasonable force in a hostile manner. But the Senate Committee, then chaired by Mitch McConnell, claimed not to have jurisdiction over a matter that took place when McCain was in the House.

Dr. Jack Wheeler’s claims

Dr. Jack Wheeler, who The Wall Street Journal called “the originator of the Reagan Doctrine,” recently posted several columns about McCain. In one of them - weeks before the New York Times ran the explosive revelations about Vicki Iseman and McCain - Dr. Wheeler wrote, McCain has been having affairs with three women, one of whom I know the name of.

In his latest piece, he wrote of how the Democrats will attack McCain systematically in the fall, bleeding him drip by drip: Then the identities of the women lobbyists with whom he has been cheating on his blonde rich wife will be known by early October.

Conclusion

Senator McCain used his wife today to finesse the issue of his alleged philandering. He used her to deny that anything bad is going on. He wouldn’t disappoint me or our children. Those words came from her - not from his mouth. He is being extra careful about denying his affairs.

His press conference in Toledo was similar to Gary Hart’s back in 1987 when he dared the media to find any examples of his philandering. Not much later came the now-infamous picture of Hart and Donna Rice on the Monkey Business.

McCain has similarly thrown down the gauntlet and denied ever violating the public trust.

Well, we’ll see now if the heretofore friendly-to-McCain media will try to prove him a liar.

The Beginning of the End of John McCain

By Dylan Loewe
The Huffington Post
February 25, 2008

Last Wednesday evening, the New York Times posted a now infamous story on its website, claiming that John McCain may have done favors for a lobbyist with whom he was romantically involved. The article, built on an unstable framework of unnamed sources, quickly became the top political headline. But rather than focus on the potential damage the story could cause to McCain’s already shaky chances in November, the narrative settled on the Times’ story itself, questioning the voracity of its sources and the motives of its publication.

The same conservative talk show hosts who had shown palpable disdain for the Senator were suddenly rallying to his defense, accusing the New York Times of a “hit job,” a willful attempt to influence the outcome of the election. Instantly, the mainstream punditry reacted in unison, proclaiming that the Times story had helped McCain to unify his base in ways that he, himself, could never have accomplished. On the other side of the unfolding events, McCain had come out on top, they argued.

In the short term, they may be right. McCain has, after all, raised more money off the incident than at any other time in the election cycle. But there is little evidence, if any, that the long term impact of these events will be beneficial for McCain, or that radio hosts who love to disparage him will continue to stand by his side.

It is impossible to imagine that before publishing the piece, Bill Keller, editor of the Times, didn’t anticipate what would come next. Having printed a top-of-the-fold, front page story insinuating adultery and corruption, and having failed to provide documentary evidence or the names of sources, Bill Keller must have expected a backlash. Is it really possible that Keller would gear up for a fight he couldn’t win? It seems far more likely that though he couldn’t offer the information publicly, there was confirmable off-the-record information that had guided his willingness to ultimately go to print. There is now great incentive for the New York Times to continue their investigation, with hope of gathering evidence that will eventually vindicate their decision. There is also incentive for reporters everywhere, who can smell the potential, an earth-shaking story, there for the taking. If the information that the New York Times published is right, the story will not stay hidden. And already, McCain’s air tight explanation is starting to leak.

In a full-throated defense Thursday morning, Senator McCain adamantly denied a romantic relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman, and denied having met with anyone at Paxson Communications, the company she represented. But, as Newsweek uncovered, in a 2002 deposition, McCain admitted the opposite, that he had spoken with Lowell Paxson himself. Shortly after the meeting, McCain sent two letters to the FCC urging a decision in an issue involving the company, all while Paxson executives were contributing $20,000 to McCain’s campaign. When asked about his dealings with Paxson, the Senator who has staked his entire mythology on a battle against lobbyists, acknowledged that “the taint effects all of us.” Indeed.

McCain’s footing with the conservative chattering class is also far from steady. In the wake of a half-hearted defense of McCain by Limbaugh and others, the bulk of the punditry class assumed that McCain’s biggest enemies on the right would line up behind him. That notion has been widely accepted, but seems misguided. Even when defending McCain, Limbaugh criticized him for cavorting with liberals, exclaiming his hope that McCain had learned his lesson. All that was uncovered about their rocky relationship is that, generally speaking, Rush Limbaugh likes John McCain more than he likes the New York Times.

But even if John McCain were able to muster a peace with the conservative elite, he still faces an enormous challenge with the real conservatives he needs: evangelicals. By wide margins, they are the largest piece of the Republican base and have been credited with helping ensure eight years of President Bush. That they will mobilize to the polls in November is far from assured, however. In the 2006 election, one in four white evangelicals voted for Democrats, with corruption as their top concern. The New York Times story has the potential to echo through this most crucial part of McCain’s winning coalition, with evidence of government corruption and a rejection of “family values.” If the narrative continues, and it very likely will, McCain might find consolidating his base to be impossible.

The scrutiny will continue, as will the story, and the damage will be gradual, but steady. John McCain’s entire appeal is his straight shooter persona, a man with integrity who stands up for clean government, even if at odds with his party. But with lobbyists running his campaign, lobbyists as, at the very least, his good friends, and with evidence mounting that he used his chairmanship to do favors for the very people he has publicly admonished, McCain is not as he appeared.

The footprint this story will have on the election is very real, possibly fatal. Come November, McCain may arrive with neither the right, nor the center - truly, a man alone.

Files and McCain Letter Show Effort to Keep Loophole

By Stephen Labaton
New York Times
February 23, 2008

In late 1998, Senator John McCain sent an unusually blunt letter to the head of the Federal Communications Commission, warning that he would try to overhaul the agency if it closed a broadcast ownership loophole.

The letter, and two later ones signed by Mr. McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, urged the commission to abandon plans to close a loophole vitally important to Glencairn Ltd., a client of Vicki Iseman, a lobbyist. The provision enabled one of the nation’s largest broadcasting companies, Sinclair, to use a marketing agreement with Glencairn, a far smaller broadcaster, to get around a restriction barring single ownership of two television stations in the same city.

At a news conference on Thursday, Mr. McCain denounced an article in The New York Times that described concerns by top advisers a decade ago about his ties to Ms. Iseman, a partner at the firm Alcalde & Fay. He said he never had any discussions with his advisers about Ms. Iseman and never did any favors for any lobbyist.

One of the McCain campaign’s statements about his dealings with Ms. Iseman was challenged by news accounts on Friday. In discussing letters he wrote regulators about a deal involving another of Ms. Iseman’s clients, Lowell W. Paxson, the campaign had said the senator had never spoken to her or anyone from the company. But Mr. McCain acknowledged in a 2002 deposition that he had sent the letters after meeting with Mr. Paxson.

On Glencairn, the campaign said Mr. McCain’s efforts to retain the loophole were not done at Ms. Iseman’s request. It said Mr. McCain was merely directing the commission to “not act in a manner contradictory to Congressional intent.” Mr. McCain wrote in the letters that a 1996 law, the telecommunications act, required the loophole; a legal opinion by the staff of the commission took the opposite view.

A review of the record, including agency records now at the National Archives and interviews with participants, shows that Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, played a significant role in killing the plan to eliminate the loophole. His actions followed requests by Ms. Iseman and lobbyists at other broadcasting companies, according to lobbying records and Congressional aides.

Over the years, Mr. McCain has taken varying positions on broadcast ownership issues. He has supported the relaxation of the ownership rules, but he has also been sharply critical of rules that permit too much concentration of ownership in a single market.

By November 1998, the F.C.C. was planning to strike down broadcasting marketing agreements, a potentially ruinous development for Glencairn. But after receiving Mr. McCain’s Dec. 1 letter, it put off consideration of the issue.

“To the extent the F.C.C. shows itself incapable of following Congressional intent,” the letter said, “these issues will become part of our overall review of the commission’s functions and structure during the next session of Congress.”

The letter, sent from Mr. McCain’s office by his staff at the commerce committee, was also signed by Senator Conrad Burns, Republican of Montana and chairman of a communications subcommittee. It was uncharacteristic of Mr. McCain, according to a review of dozens of letters sent by him to the commission during the same period.

It was the only letter that contained a suggestion that a failure to act would result in the possible overhaul of the agency.

The letter said that “as a leading participant in the passage of the 1996 Act, I have a very clear understanding” of the law’s intent and why it required the ownership loophole to be preserved. Mr. McCain was one of five senators — and the only Republican — to vote against the act. He has also been an outspoken critic of it.

While other companies also complained to Congress about the plan to close the loophole, the issue was particularly important to Sinclair because it had more marketing agreements than any in the nation. For its part, Glencairn appeared to have been getting little support in Congress until it retained Ms. Iseman in 1998.

Edwin Edwards, who was the president of the company at the time, said in a recent interview that after retaining Ms. Iseman, he was able to get heard by Mr. McCain.

“We were pounding the pavement in Washington,” Mr. Edwards said. “We recruited help from as many people as we could. We knocked on every door just trying to get support.”

The campaign said that Mr. McCain never spoke with Ms. Iseman about the issue, but that she did speak to his staff about it. Mr. Edwards and Mr. McCain met on July 20, 1999, according to the campaign.

After the commission postponed consideration of the issue, Mr. McCain signed a second letter to the agency on Dec. 7, 1998, in support of local marketing agreements, and a third one on Feb. 11, 1999. The third letter was signed by four other lawmakers. Ultimately, the F.C.C. loosened the rules to permit a company to own two television stations in some markets.

The letters Mr. McCain wrote to the commission in the Paxson matter were sent in late 1999 and prompted the agency’s chairman to chastise him for interfering in a licensing matter. The incident embarrassed Mr. McCain, then making his first presidential run, because Mr. Paxson was a campaign contributor and fund-raiser.

While the campaign said Thursday that Mr. McCain never spoke to anyone from Paxson or Ms. Iseman’s lobbying firm before sending those letters to the commission, an article posted Friday on Newsweek’s Web site said Mr. McCain had previously acknowledged first speaking to Mr. Paxson. Recounting that conversation, Mr. McCain testified in the deposition, “I said I would be glad to write a letter asking them to act.”

The Washington Post reported Friday on its Web site that Mr. Paxson acknowledged in an interview that he had met with Mr. McCain to discuss the letters before they were sent and that Ms. Iseman was probably at the meeting.

In three interviews with The Times since December, Mr. Paxson has provided varying accounts about the letters. In the first, he said Ms. Iseman was involved in the drafting of them and had lobbied Mr. McCain. He later said he could not recall who had been involved.

Uber-Lobbyist Who Serves As McCain’s Chief Political Adviser Considers McCain His ‘Client’

Think Progress
February 24, 2008

John McCain (R-AZ) is fond of presenting himself as a true enemy of Washington, D.C’s lobbying culture, claiming that he’s “the only one the special interests don’t give any money to.” But as the Washington Post noted yesterday, McCain’s political organization is actually built on the backs of lobbyists who play a central role in his quest for higher office.

Charlie Black, who serves as McCain’s chief political adviser, “is chairman of one of Washington’s lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented AT&T, Alcoa, JPMorgan and U.S. Airways.” Though he is currently playing a prominent role in the McCain campaign, Black “is still being paid by his firm.”

On Friday, Black told the National Journal that he doesn’t think his continued lobbying is a problem for the anti-lobbying image of his “client,” John McCain:

Well, it’s perfectly fine as long as I am able to make the distinction between giving advice to McCain and representing clients. It’s the same principle as when you have multiple clients and you handle them all differently. You don’t talk to one client about what you do for the other. In my volunteer role with McCain, I consider him a client.

Some of Black’s other clients currently “have interests before the Senate and, in particular, the Commerce Committee, of which” his “client,” John McCain is a member. As TPM’s Greg Sargent noted yesterday, Black “does a lot of his work by telephone from McCain’s Straight Talk Express bus.”

It’s hard to imagine that Black’s seat on the bus has been bad for business.

McCain Defends Pressing Agency to Act on License

Big Campaign Donor Just Wanted a TV Station

By Michael Kranish
Boston Globe
February 22, 2008

Senator John McCain yesterday defended pushing a government agency to decide whether to issue a TV license to a major donor, asserting that the agency’s former chairman had cleared his role as “appropriate.”

But the Federal Communications Commission chairman involved in the case, William E. Kennard, actually wrote a letter to McCain at the time saying that his request for the agency to take action was “highly unusual” and that he was concerned that McCain’s action would interfere with the agency’s “due process.”

Asked to explain the apparent contradiction, a McCain spokeswoman said yesterday that the Arizona senator was citing exoneration from a chairman who left the commission in 1997 - even though that was two years before McCain pushed the FCC to decide the case. The spokeswoman denied that McCain sought to mislead the public.

Angela Campbell, a Georgetown University law professor who represented opponents of the company trying to buy the TV station, said yesterday that McCain’s statement that a former FCC chairman deemed his action appropriate was “very misleading” because the campaign was relying on someone who was not involved in the matter.

Also, Reed Hundt, the former FCC chairman cited as exonerating McCain, said in an interview that he shouldn’t have been, notwithstanding a letter to the editor he wrote in 2000 praising the senator. “I can’t speak to a thing,” Hundt said yesterday. “I don’t know anything about what he wrote to Kennard and not to me.”

McCain’s letter to the FCC, and the response by Kennard, are at the heart of an episode that has resurfaced after The New York Times reported that McCain’s aides were concerned about whether he might have had an inappropriate relationship with a lobbyist for the donor.

With his wife, Cindy by his side, McCain said at a news conference in Ohio yesterday that the story was “not true” and that he did no special favors for the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, whom he called a friend. “At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust,” said the likely Republican presidential nominee.

The Times stood by the story, which was published online Wednesday night and in yesterday’s newspaper and was discussed at length on political talk shows.

Conservatives railed against the Times, as journalism commentators debated the use of anonymous sources in the Times story, which said the unnamed top advisers were convinced that the relationship between McCain and Iseman had become romantic and intervened to keep them apart.

McCain’s campaign yesterday called the story a smear and launched a fund-raising appeal based on it, saying it needed contributions to “counteract the liberal establishment and fight back against The New York Times.”

The underlying issue is about McCain’s effort on behalf of one of his largest campaign benefactors, Paxson Communications, to win approval from the FCC to buy a Pittsburgh television station. In his 2000 presidential campaign, McCain received $20,000 in donations from Paxson-affiliated individuals and took four flights aboard Paxson’s corporate aircraft, including one flight on the day before he wrote a letter to Kennard seeking action on the request to buy the television station.

At yesterday’s news conference, McCain said it was “accepted practice” to fly on corporate aircraft and reimburse the companies. “Since then, the rules have been changed.” he said. “It was something I supported.”

As for his letter to the FCC on behalf of Paxson, McCain said, “I wrote a letter because the FCC, which usually makes a decision within 400 days, had gone almost 800 days,” he said. “In the letter, I said, ‘I am not telling you how to make a decision; I’m just telling you that you should move forward and make a decision on this issue.’ And I believe that was appropriate.” McCain then said, the “former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission at the time in 2000 said that that was more than an appropriate role for me to play as chairman of the [Commerce] Committee.”

The senator has staked his campaign on his reputation for “straight talk” and his efforts to reform the campaign finance system. His dealings with the FCC in 1999 and 2000 were cited at the time as raising questions about whether he was too close to donors and their lobbyists. The letter from Kennard to McCain was first reported by the Globe in an article on Jan. 5, 2000, and it became a significant campaign issue.

Kennard declined comment yesterday. He served as FCC chairman from 1997 to January 2001 and works at The Carlyle Group, a Washington-based private equity firm. He is on the board of directors of The New York Times Co., which owns the Globe.

McCain’s spokeswoman said yesterday that the senator was referring in his news conference to a letter written by Hundt, who was FCC chairman from 1993 to 1997.

After the reports in 2000 that Kennard had criticized McCain’s letter on behalf of Paxson Communications, Hundt wrote a letter to the editor of The Washington Post in support of McCain’s right to send letters to the FCC chairman as long as the senator didn’t take a position on how the commission should rule.

The McCain campaign sent a copy of Hundt’s letter yesterday to the Globe to explain why McCain felt exonerated, even while acknowledging that Hundt was not chairman at the time when McCain was urging that a decision be made on the Paxson case. “Senator McCain was clear when he indicated today that former chairman Hundt defended his submission of the letter,” McCain spokeswoman Crystal Benton said yesterday.

McCain, however, did not mention Hundt or Kennard by name at his news conference. Hundt said yesterday that he was trying to defend McCain at the time from attacks from the campaign of George W. Bush and that he couldn’t speak to what happened after he left the chairmanship.

McCain wrote to the FCC on Dec. 10, 1999, “expressing concern over the protracted pendency of the pending applications for assignment of licenses of WQEX-TV and WPCB-TV, Pittsburgh, Pa.” He said he was not telling the FCC how to vote but asking “merely that you vote.” He asked commissioners to disclose whether they had acted on the request or whether they planned to do so within days. Kennard replied by expressing concern that McCain’s letter “comes at a sensitive time in the deliberative process as the individual commissioners finalize their views and their votes on this matter. I must respectfully note that it is highly unusual for the commissioners to be asked to publicly announce their voting status on a matter that is still pending.”

Another commissioner, Gloria Tristani, wrote McCain in 1999 that she would not comply with his request to reveal whether she had acted on the request, “in order to preserve the integrity of our processes.” Tristani said yesterday McCain’s request was “unusual.”

Shortly after McCain wrote his letter to the FCC, the commission voted 3 to 2 to allow Paxson to buy the television station, with Kennard and Tristani dissenting.

McCain: Experienced in the Ways of Washington Lobbyists

By smintheus
Daily Kos
February 20, 2008

John McCain yesterday said “I’m not the youngest candidate, but I’m the most experienced.” True enough, but from the very start of his Congressional career McCain’s experience has involved chasing after lobbyists’ money. In the case of Vicki Iseman at least, it may also have meant chasing after her.

One part of the NYT story (bolstered now by the WaPo) perfectly encapsulates what it’s about, and what McCain is all about. It comes right after the Times notes that some current aides to McCain contend that “the senator sided with Ms. Iseman’s clients only when their positions hewed to his principles.” (McCain himself refused to be interviewed for the story.) It turns out that in the late 1990s there was an awful lot of hewing to McCain’s “principles” going on.

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., 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 [another Iseman client].

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. In an embarrassing turn for the campaign, news reports invoked the Keating scandal, once again raising questions about intervening for a patron.

Mr. McCain’s aides released all of his letters to the F.C.C. to dispel accusations of favoritism, and aides said the campaign had properly accounted for four trips on the Paxson plane. But the campaign did not report the flight with Ms. Iseman [on the Paxson corporate jet, in February 1999]. Mr. McCain’s advisers say he was not required to disclose the flight, but ethics lawyers dispute that.

So, McCain uses undue pressure to try to force the FCC to grant a sweetheart deal to Iseman’s clients (involving several Pittsburgh TV stations). He’s so far out of line that he gets rebuked by the FCC Chairman. The episode becomes known and draws public comparisons to McCain’s efforts on behalf of Charles Keating a dozen years earlier. And McCain tries to dispel allegations of wrongdoing by…suppressing information about a cozy flight he took with Iseman after a Miami fundraiser earlier that same year.

In 1999, CIPB filed this rather more detailed report about McCain’s efforts on behalf of Paxson in the Pittsburgh case. CIPB was demanding an investigation of McCain’s activities.

On November 17, 1999 the Senator and Presidential candidate instructed the FCC commissioners to take action on the deal no later than December 15, 1999. “If in your judgment the Commission cannot meet this request, please advise me of this fact in writing, with a specific and complete explanation, no later than November 18, 1999,” wrote McCain.

In a second letter, dated December 10, 1999, written to FCC Chair William Kennard, McCain was even more forceful in his resolution. He demanded, “if the license applications were not acted upon” that Chairman Kennard “…explain why.” Obviously feeling the pressure, the commissioners voted to approve the application. However, the FCC press release indicated that the 30-page opinion included four separate dissenting opinions.

Kennard responded to McCain’s letter by saying, “It is highly unusual for the commissioners to be asked to publicly announce their voting status on a matter that is still pending.” He said such inquiries “could have procedural and substantive impacts on the Commission’s deliberations and, thus, on the due process rights of the parties.”

Save Pittsburgh Public Television campaign’s director Jerry Starr, said, “This is the latest and most flagrant example of Washington insiders riding rough-shod over community sentiment. The pressure to resolve this by December 15th comes from the applicants, Paxson Communications, WQED, and Cornerstone TeleVision, whose contract expires at the end of the year.” Starr added, “McCain is making big statements about taking the money out of politics, but we have discovered that Paxson, his people and his attorneys have contributed at least $15,000 to McCain’s campaign in the past few months.”

Hoo boy, that’s some kind of hewing. Not one, but two inappropriate letters to the FCC in less than a month. One letter asked that the Commission (a) hurry up, and (b) tell McCain in advance that they’ll get the job done for him. The second letter demands an explanation if they fail to hurry up. This is a Senator whom somebody has lit a flame under; that somebody was Vicki Iseman.

When McCain published his autobiography three years later, he had this to say about those “principles” that everybody in this story was hewing to (Worth the Fighting For, pp. 159-160):

Learning from my unhappy experience [with the Keating Five], I have refrained from ever intervening in the regulatory decisions of the federal government if such intervention could be construed, rightly or wrongly, as done solely or primarily for the benefit of a major financial supporter of my campaigns.

Heh.

Maverick? No. Straight-talker? Not on your life. Experienced? Sure, in the charms of Washington lobbyists.

A Look at How McCain Urged the Federal Communications Commission to Act on Behalf of Paxson Communications

View video

JUAN GONZALEZ: Senator John McCain is denying a New York Times report alleging questionable ties with a female Washington lobbyist. The Times reported Thursday that during his 2000 run for the White House, McCain repeatedly wrote letters to government regulators on behalf of clients of the telecommunications lobbyist, Vicki Iseman. McCain served as chair of the Senate Commerce Committee at the time.

The Times also reports that aides to McCain were concerned the senator was having a romantic affair with the lobbyist. McCain and Iseman have denied having any romantic relationship. But former McCain aides said the senator acknowledged behaving inappropriately and pledged to keep his distance from Iseman. On Thursday, McCain denied the story at a campaign stop in Ohio.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust nor make a decision which in any way would not be in the public interest and would favor anyone or any organization. As chairman of the Commerce Committee, there were hundreds of issues, including many telecommunications issues, that came before the committee. I had to make decisions on those issues, and I made those decisions. Sometimes they were agreed with, sometimes they were not. But any observer will attest to the fact that I made those decisions on the basis of what I thought was in the best interest of the American citizen. So I’m proud of my record of service to this country.

JUAN GONZALEZ: The McCain campaign later accused the New York Times of rushing to print the story to preempt an article in the New Republic that said Times staffers had clashed over its publication. The New Republic criticized the article for relying on what it called “anecdotal evidence” and says Times executive editor Bill Keller had initially opposed it. In a statement, Keller said he and the Times stand by the story.

AMY GOODMAN: In its article, the New York Times mentions McCain’s involvement in pushing through a television deal sought by one of Iseman’s clients, Paxson Communications. In 1999, Paxson was awaiting approval from the Federal Communications Commission to purchase a television station in Pittsburgh. The deal was opposed by a local community group because it would have turned a public television license into a commercial one.

Iseman confirmed to the Times she sent McCain staffers information that would later form the basis of two letters in which McCain urged the FCC to reach a decision. The letters were deemed so unusual that the FCC chair at the time, William Kennard, accused McCain of interference. As chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, McCain would apparently be in violation of ex parte rules barring outside pressure on FCC decisions.

Our first guest was on the other side of McCain’s lobbying efforts in this case. Angela Campbell was the attorney for the Alliance for Progressive Action and QED Accountability Project, the community groups that sought to block Paxson’s takeover of the Pittsburgh public television license. She is currently director of the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown University Law Center. She joins us now from Washington, D.C.

Angela Campbell, welcome to Democracy Now! Why don’t you start off by explaining what this case is about?

ANGELA CAMPBELL: Well, in Pittsburgh, there were two public television stations, and they were operating on channels that the FCC had specifically designated for noncommercial, educational purposes, and they were both operated by the same organization, WQED. And they had run into financial difficulties, and so they were seeking to sell one of the stations. And in order to sell the station to a commercial operator, they had to get FCC approval to de-reserve the station, that is, to make it into a commercial station instead of a noncommercial station.

And my clients were very opposed to this. They felt that, you know, this was a public resource, should be serving the public, and they wanted to improve the service on the station and help the public broadcasters be more responsive to the community, rather than allow it to be sold. So they opposed the de-reservation of the station. And the FCC agreed with my clients that it would not be in the public interest to turn this into a commercial station.

Then, what happened was, the FCC—the public broadcaster had what they called a “Plan B.” It was sort of complicated, so let me explain—take a few minutes to explain it. There was another station in the market, a channel 40, that was a religious station, but it was not a reserved station. It was a commercial station, and the operator of that station was Cornerstone. So they had a deal where, if the FCC disapproved their first plan, they would swap the station with Cornerstone so that Cornerstone would end up operating on the noncommercial station, and then WQED would have a commercial station that they would then sell to Paxson. And so, my clients challenged that whole deal at the Federal Communications Commission by filing what was called a petition to deny. That’s something that any citizens in the community can file if there’s a transfer of a license that they think would not serve the public interest.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, Angela Campbell, as I understand it, this was running into—this had started around ’97, was running into late ’99, and there was a deadline for the end of the year of ’99 for a deal to be reached or the whole thing would fall through. And that’s when suddenly Senator McCain sent some letters to the FCC, basically pressuring them to make a decision. Could you talk about that?

ANGELA CAMPBELL: That’s right. Well, there had been—it was very controversial at the FCC, and I think they were really having trouble approving it, because they had actually asked—the main obstacle was that Cornerstone wasn’t, in our view, qualified to be a noncommercial licensee, because their programming wasn’t educational, it wasn’t noncommercial, and they didn’t broadly serve the community. But so, we didn’t find this out until December 15th.

The day that the commission actually approved the deal, we found out that Senator McCain had send two letters, one in November and one in December, urging the FCC—the first one urged the FCC to act on or before December 15th, which was when the FCC was going to hold their public meeting. The second letter, which was in early December, said that—the agenda for that meeting had come out, and he didn’t see that the FCC was planning to vote on it on that date, and so he wanted to know whether the commissioners were voting on it through another process, which doesn’t involve putting it on the public agenda. And he asked each commissioner to write to him by the close of business on December 14th whether they had voted the item and, if not, why they had not voted the item. And this was highly unusual for a chairman of the committee to ask that specifically to each commissioner, whether they had voted. And that’s why the chairman, Kennard, in his response raised concerns about it. And another commissioner, Commissioner Gloria Tristani, actually said she thought it was improper, and she was not going to report to the senator, you know, whether she had voted or not.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And why was it improper? What is this issue of the ex parte communications? Could you explain that?

ANGELA CAMPBELL: Yes. Well, just like in a—this is like a court, in that the FCC is the judge, and just as one side in a dispute can’t go and talk to the judge privately, the parties in a dispute before the commission cannot go and talk to the commissioners or the commission staff privately, nor can they send letters or other documents without sending them to the other side. And so, we had actually had a number of letters that we had solicited from congresspeople that the FCC actually rejected, because they said they hadn’t been served on the other side. And then we went back and made sure that they got copies of those letters.

We were never sent a copy of Senator McCain’s letters by him, did not find out about them until December 15th, the day of the vote, when someone from the FCC’s general counsel’s office faxed copies over to me. So the FCC rules explicitly prohibit communications that go to the merits or communications that go to urging the FCC to act by a specific date. So this was a clear violation of the FCC’s rules. And on December 20th, we actually filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission’s general counsel, alleging that he had violated the rules, and we asked for them to act on it right away. They did not However, eventually, in August of 2000, they did rule that the senator had violated the rules.

AMY GOODMAN: Juan, you’re also looking into this. I wanted to talk more about these letters that Angela Campbell is talking about, these two letters from Senator McCain to the FCC, the pressure he was putting on these FCC members and how unusual these letters were.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I think the key thing is not only that he apparently violated the regulations of the FCC, but also he’s the chair of the committee that oversees the FCC. So he’s, in essence—he controls their budget, their policies and to what degree—because, obviously, every single commissioner did respond in a letter to him by the deadline that he gave them, didn’t they, Angela?

ANGELA CAMPBELL: Yes, they all responded. And you’re absolutely right, as the chairman of that committee, he has oversight responsibility. He controls the budget of the FCC, and he’s the person who really controls the legislation, you know, which determines what the FCC can and cannot do.

AMY GOODMAN: Angela Campbell, did any of these commissioners outright say this is improper to be getting this letter from you and being forced to respond to it?

ANGELA CAMPBELL: Yes, Commissioner Tristani did say that in her letter.

AMY GOODMAN: You’ve got the letters right there—

ANGELA CAMPBELL: Yes, I have it here.

AMY GOODMAN: —Angela Campbell, director of the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown. Yes?

ANGELA CAMPBELL: She says, “In that letter, you requested that each commissioner advise you in writing by the close of business today whether we have acted upon these applications. Respectfully, I cannot comply with your request, in order to preserve the integrity of our processes. It is my practice not to publicly disclose whether I have voted or when I will be voting on items in restricted proceedings prior to their adoption by the full commission.”

AMY GOODMAN: And explain again what Vicki Iseman, the lobbyist in question, what her role is in this, why Senator McCain, head of the Commerce Committee at the time, is doing this?

ANGELA CAMPBELL: OK. Well, at the time, we did not know of her role. When I found out about the letter, we assumed it was—that Paxson had requested the letter, because it did benefit Paxson, because they had this contract, that if it wasn’t—the deal was not approved by the end of the year, then the contract could be renegotiated. So we just assumed that Paxson was behind it because, quite frankly, in my experience in more than twenty years in Washington, D.C., congresspeople don’t normally write letters of this type or other without being asked to do so. So it wasn’t actually until later that we found out, when the Washington Post reported that he had written the letter at the request of her lobbying firm.

AMY GOODMAN: And the previous record of John McCain, Juan, the Keating Five, how sensitive John McCain is, in particular to this issue of being close to lobbyists and doing things on their behalf, if you could explain.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, yeah. I mean, Angela, you’re familiar, obviously, with some of that history, as well, although it’s not actually in your area, but he did receive enormous criticism several decades ago, actually, for his involvement in supporting what became one of the largest savings and loans failures in American history.

AMY GOODMAN: Almost took him down as a senator.

ANGELA CAMPBELL: I mean, I’m somewhat familiar with that history, but that really—I don’t have any specific knowledge about that.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s outside your purview.

ANGELA CAMPBELL: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for joining us today, Angela Campbell, director of the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown University Law Center. We will continue to follow this story.