A story that may be a major ‘Payne’ for the Bush gang

July 15, 2008

It may be a little late in the game for a massive new White House scandal — Bush leaves office in 188 days — but selling access to leading administration officials in exchange for foreign contributions to Bush’s library may prove to be a very awkward controversy for the president.

We covered this on Sunday, but to briefly review, a British paper caught Stephen Payne, a Bush pioneer and a political appointee to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, on tape, “offering access to key members of the Bush administration inner circle in exchange for ‘six-figure donations to the private library being set up to commemorate Bush’s presidency.'”

The story did not go by unnoticed.

A House committee Monday launched an investigation of Houston businessman Stephen Payne, probing whether he violated federal law by suggesting he could arrange access to top White House aides in return for a large donation to the Bush presidential library being planned in Dallas.

The development came a day after Payne was enmeshed in a sting operation set up by The Sunday Times of London, which surreptitiously filmed him discussing library contributions during a meeting with a Central Asian politician and a reporter posing as an associate.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, informed Payne late Monday that his panel would look into the report.

“If true, this raises serious concerns about the ways in which foreign interests might be secretly influencing large donations to the library,” Waxman wrote in the letter to Payne.

Payne told CNN yesterday that he understands that his on-tape comments could be “perceived” as “bribery,” but insisted that his efforts were legal, and accused the UK’s Sunday Times of “gotcha” journalism.

Note to Payne: they “got you” on tape.

The White House, meanwhile, hasn’t quite figured out what to say yet.

The reporters were on the right track here. If Payne is offering to sell access, what kind of access has he received at the White House? Perino’s response was rather amusing: “[O]bviously we’ve been down this road before with visitor logs and there’s lawsuits and things.”

Keep an eye on this. It could get interesting.

In the words of this Administration , define “legal”…when the Executive branch starts making the laws, Democracy dies.

  • [O]bviously we’ve been down this road before with visitor logs and there’s lawsuits and things.

    Yes, Dana, and obviously the White House has been stonewalling for a reason.

  • Perino said that since he’s a Republican fundraiser, it’s possible that the President met him. This is a BIG step forward from denying any meeting had ever taken place ever (a la Jack Abramoff).

    Pretty soon, we can look forward to the day that Perino comes right out and says “Yeah – he met with the President. And yeah, he’s a scumbag who’s arranging for political favors to those with big banking accounts. So what?”

  • I don’t know, Steve, I’ve been waiting for years for things to get “interesting” with all the shenanigans this Adminstration has pulled. Hasn’t happened yet.

  • It’s hard to get emotional about this kind of thing anymore. The only thing that is going to happen are hearings and strongly worded letters… So many blatantly criminal acts by the administration have gone unpunished another doesn’t seem to matter much.

    Even the staunch Republican people I know agree this administration agree this group is criminal, they justify it by saying it is “business as usual” and nothing can be done.

    I would like to be outraged, but I guess the latest Rove thing drove me to the apathetic crowd.

  • Only 188 days? That’s plenty of time to make hay. The GOP made a bazillion cheap points on the Clinton pardon scandals as he was leaving office (remember Marc Rich?). If Sen. Clinton had become the nominee, she would have faced a blizzard of hit pieces on library donations from foreign concerns.

    History, it appears, is symmetrical. Have at it, Rep. Waxman.

  • If you stop selling access the terrorists win. Meanwhile, Osama donated “My Pet Goat” to the library.

  • Pelosi is probably already bringing a bill to the floor to legalize this and grant Payne retroactive immunity.

  • I have said it before and will continue to say it. The only way Congress can respond to the continous blantant lawbreaking by this adminstration is with impeachment. It is the tool set forth in the Constitution for the legislative branch to bring a rogue President to heel.

    And yes I’m well aware of the fact that it would a hard fight. I’m aware of the fact the Dems have only a 1 seat majority in the Senate. And I’m aware of the fact that having an Impeachment fight would dstract the Congress from its vital mission of giving Bush everything he wants.

    But they should have the fight. Even if they lose, they shoudl still have the fight.

    This country came within a hairs breath of kicking Clinton out of office because he ‘lied’ about a blow job. At this point in time more people beleive Bush should be impeached than ever thought Clinton should have been. And back then the full force of the right wing noise machine was going 24/7 yelling for Clinton’s head. There is NO national voice calling for Bush’s head. Image what happens to the those poll numbers if there was someone calling for Bush’s head everyday.

    Reid and Pelosi have rendered Congress an impotent tool of the executive branch.

  • A few years ago, the administration executed one of its “powerfully staged photo-ops” and forced all of its people to go to ethics training. Payne must have missed it. There are supposed to be strict guidelines on this sort of thing. While Payne resign from the HSAC? Will he be removed? Will he be prosecuted? Would an investigation show that Bush administration statements, meetings, or policies have been bought and paid for through the machinations of Mr. Payne or others?

  • Makes Clinton’s Lincoln bedroom stuff look pretty weak, but of course we heard more about that than we ever will about this.

  • Acrtually, RacerX, this is exactly why I am so glad that we aren’t in a position of having to defend Hillary when we attack Payne, because I don’t see that much difference.

    Thorin-1: I am, and continue to be, an opponent of impeachment — and you’ve anticipated my arguments, but I’ll repeat them. It is not just a ‘hard fight’ but an impossible one. There are not 17 Republican Senators who will convict no matter what Bush did — and I’m not sure that impeachment would even pass the House given the number of ‘blue dogs’ there.

    It might even be worth it if the country would ‘get it’ during the battle, but they wouldn’t, because the whole spin of the Republicans would be that this is ‘nothing but payback for the Clinton impeachment.’ The Democrats would spend so much time fighting that charge that the facts wouldn’t get out — and it is also the one thing that would unify the Republican party and make McCain even a potential threat.

    However, — and thanks to Mark Kleiman for pointing this out — there is NO reason why the relevant committee shouldn’t hold hearings on an impeachment resolution, even if they had no intention of bringing it to the floor, and I would welcome that.

    I have never denied that Bush has committed impeachable offenses merely that there was any way of successfully impeaching him. (Actually, if it was just meant for ‘punishment’ — even though the only punishment would be removal from office — and to make the point to the country — technically it would be possible for the new Congress to impeach him in the two weeks between when they take office and when President Obama does. I think this would be a political mistake, that it would be misinterpreted, but I certainly wouldn’t argue against it then since there would be two years to demonstrate what the Democrats can and will do with a decent majority and correct any negative image it produced.)

  • Ask Grandma Pelosi?!! Are you kidding? She belongs back in CA playing in the yard with her grandchildren. For all her saber rattling she’s a wimp taking impeachment off the table as soon as she became Speaker of what I don’t know. Now she has to decide about pursuing Rove’s snub to congress? She’s going to let him off the hook too. Really, she needs to go play with her grandchildren. That’s more her speed.

  • Prup (aka Jim Benton) –

    I get your argument. It would be a difficult fight. And one that that, most likely, Dems would lose.

    But I firmly believe that Dems (particularly Reid) biggest problem is their timidity. If it looks like it will a tough fight, they whither. If it looks like they are going to get slammed by the Beltway press corps, they whither.

    Harry Reid gave away the store on Iraq war funding less then a week after taking control of the senate by announcing the ‘compromise’ he’d agree too three weeks BEFORE the vote and less than a day into the debate.

    Democrats must at some point demonstrate that they are willing to stand and fight over a principle, even if it means losing, even if it means members of the press will call them bad names. Until they do that, they will remain little more than an impotent force in politics.

  • Where is the American press on this story? How come the British press seem to get more in-depth about this administration than our own “liberal” media?

  • Thorin 1– if it were a ‘tough fight’ I’d be all for it. It is an impossible fight. (I will stop saying this as soon as someone shows me a list of the seventeen Republican Senators that they can make even a credible case as votes for conviction — and that is assuming every Democrat votes to convict, highly unlikely.)

    And if it would convey the ‘message/ you wanted, I might still support it, but it wouldn’t. This is one case where the Republican spin machine would be very effective at blowing smoke and confusing the issue. A lot of people would flock to the support of ‘poor President Bush’ being attacked by those ‘vindictive’ Democrats. (It would have been even worse if Hillary had been the nominee, btw.)

    I hope you and everyone understand how much it pains me to argue this way. I’d love to see Bush impeached and convicted. I love the Constitution, and would love to see him pay for what he’s done. But it just can’t happen, and I will continue to applaud Pelosi for ‘taking it off the table’ because she realized this was true.

    In fact, do me a favor, thorin-1, and get a good book on the Impeachment of Nixon — not ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, which was great but was actually published before the Impeachment process had taken hold. See how difficult it was to make a case until the taping was revealed. See, also, that while several Democrats insisted on the ‘undeclared war’ against Cambodia be included as an article, it was voted down in the House. (And yes, that was a worse violation than was Bush’s lying us into Iraq — or Johnson’s lying us into Vietnam.)

    And Bush, sadly, has the argument that most of his more illegal acts were ratified by acts of Congress, and that you can’t impeach him if he was ‘merely carrying out Congress’ will.’ (Yes this is far from trure, but he’ll lie like hell to argue it and there’s just enough truth in it to stay some Democrat’s hands. How can a Democrat who voted for the Protect America Act — like the Nelsons, Mikulski, Feinstein, Webb, and McCaskill — vote to impeach Bush for assaulting the 4th Amendment?)

    Again, investigate fully — and we’ll have the chance with the New Majority after January — and make sure the hearings get coverage. Bring out the books that will show exactly how bad the last 8 years have been. Pass laws to prevent a President from ever acting this way again. Punish whatever underlings Bush does not pardon in his closing days.

    But remember, we are Democrats. We are supposed to know the difference between justice and vengeance. Even more, we are supposed to be able to distinguish between ‘bad acts,’ ‘criminal acts’ and ‘Impeachable offenses.”

  • Prup, I call shenanigans. You’re essentially saying that justice should be denied in the name of politics. We do know the difference between impeachable offenses, criminal acts, and bad acts. Demonstrably, Bush has committed impeachable offenses. I’m not saying that this is one, but ignoring justice for political expediency isn’t exactly a good argument.

    You say, “Punish whatever underlings Bush does not pardon in his closing days.” But if he’s left in office until the end, do you not think that he’ll pardon everyone he can? He’ll pardon everyone from Cheney down to his damn dog for their parts in the crimes of the administration. The only charge you could stick any of them with would be treason, simply because he can’t pardon that one, and I doubt they meet the legal requirements for that charge anyway. In short, in 2009, it will be too late. The only person who could be tried, at that point, will be Bush himself, and I seriously doubt that would happen. It’s the sort of precedent that no one will want to see, and god forbid McCain wins, his first act will be to grand Bush a pardon.

    I’ll admit, I’m in the “is/ought” gap here. I really do think that in 2006, Pelosi should have begun impeachment hearings. The fact that she didn’t, and that she and Reid have demonstrated a complete lack of any sort of backbone when it comes to standing up for principles, is the top of my list of reasons for why they shouldn’t hold their positions in the next Congress. So I recognize that impeachment won’t happen. I just don’t think that immediately taking it off the table is a laudable act.

    So yes, put measures in place so that partisanship will no longer block justice and the rule of law. Investigate as much as you can, and hope that Cheney takes a vacation to somewhere in Europe where he’ll be arrested for war crimes and tried at the Hague. Do everything that you can to make sure that this won’t happen again. But don’t praise the virtue of someone willing to aid and abet Bush’s crimes for the sake of expediency. Don’t pretend that Pelosi is some shining beacon of wisdom for lacking the courage to stand up for principles. Yeah, Don Quixote was a fool, but he was a virtuous fool, and I’d rather be him than Nancy Pelosi any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

  • You missed one very important point…Payne also bragged about getting a foreign terrorist, who donated to the library, taken off the terror list!!!!!

    It was on TPM: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/204035.php

    “Stephen Payne, a major GOP fundraiser and international affairs lobbyist, also touted his success in getting an Uzbek opposition leader removed from the U.S. terrorist watch list and issued a U.S. visa.”

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