Just yesterday, at a campaign stop in Indiana, Barack Obama said, “[I]f Sen. McCain wants to talk about why Washington is broken, that’s a debate I’m happy to have. Because Sen. McCain’s energy plan reads like an early Christmas list for oil and gas lobbyists. And it’s no wonder — because many of his top advisors are former oil and gas lobbyists.”
And as if the point needed additional reinforcing, Greg Sargent and Eric Kleefeld move the ball forward on John McCain’s Hess troubles.
It turns out that two high-ranking McCain campaign officials, one of whom is also one of McCain’s more prolific bundlers, were both were paid lobbyists for Hess for roughly three years, according to disclosure forms.
The two lobbyists are Wayne Berman, McCain’s national finance co-chairman, and John Green, who’s been the McCain campaign’s chief Congressional liaison since March. Both men worked for a firm called Ogilvy Government Relations. The firm has been paid $800,000 by Hess from 2005 up to the present, including $720,000 during the period that both of the two lobbied for the company, the forms say.
Berman, a prolific fundraiser and bundler for McCain, appears to still be lobbying for Hess. The most recently filed form shows that he was lobbying for the company as late as mid-July. Green took a leave of absence from Ogilvy to join the campaign, but was still on the Hess account up through the first quarter of 2008, the forms show.
“That John McCain’s campaign also has Hess lobbyists as two of its top advisers raises additional questions about how McCain and the RNC came to raise $300,000 from Hess employees, including the controversial contribution reported earlier this week,” David Donnelly of Campaign Money Watch told TPM. “Hess oil would stand to make a killing from offshore drilling. Berman and Green were their lobbyists. Did they play any role in lining up these contributions?”
What a good question.
And just as a refresher, let’s not forget why Hess is of particular interest.
Ten senior Hess Corporation executives and/or members of the Hess family each gave $28,500 to the joint RNC-McCain fundraising committee, just days after McCain reversed himself to favor offshore drilling, according to Federal Election Commission reports.
Nine of these contributions, seven from Hess executives and two from members of the Hess family, came on the same day, June 24th, the records show. The total collected in the wake of McCain’s reversal for the fund, called McCain Victory 2008, from Hess execs and family is $285,000.
We were alerted to the contributions by Campaign Money Watch, a non-partisan group that tracks campaign contributions. The contributions were given a quick mention deep in a report the group issued late last week, but with no names or other details provided. The Hess contributions are clearly newsworthy on their own.
This became even more noteworthy when we learned that lower-level Hess employees, including an office manager and a Hess driver, also contributed thousands to McCain and the RNC fund established on McCain’s behalf.
And now that we learn Hess lobbyists are also high-ranking officials in the McCain campaign, you can see why there are questions about McCain’s willingness to stand up to Big Oil.