A Hole in McCain’s Defense?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/114505/

February 22nd, 2008
A Hole in McCain’s Defense?
An apparent contradiction in his response to lobbyist story.
By Michael Isikoff / Newsweek

A sworn deposition that Sen. John McCain gave in a lawsuit more than five years ago appears to contradict one part of a sweeping denial that his campaign issued this week to rebut a New York Times story about his ties to a Washington lobbyist.

On Wednesday night the Times published a story suggesting that McCain might have done legislative favors for the clients of the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who worked for the firm of Alcalde & Fay. One example it cited were two letters McCain wrote in late 1999 demanding that the Federal Communications Commission act on a long-stalled bid by one of Iseman's clients, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to purchase a Pittsburgh television station.

Just hours after the Times's story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff—and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC," the campaign said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.

But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. "I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint."

While McCain said "I don't recall" if he ever directly spoke to the firm's lobbyist about the issue—an apparent reference to Iseman, though she is not named—"I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]." McCain agreed that his letters on behalf of Paxson, a campaign contributor, could "possibly be an appearance of corruption"—even though McCain denied doing anything improper.

McCain's subsequent letters to the FCC—coming around the same time that Paxson's firm was flying the senator to campaign events aboard its corporate jet and contributing $20,000 to his campaign—first surfaced as an issue during his unsuccessful 2000 presidential bid. William Kennard, the FCC chair at the time, described the sharply worded letters from McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, as "highly unusual."

The issue erupted again this week when the New York Times reported that McCain's top campaign strategist at the time, John Weaver, was so concerned about what Iseman (who was representing Paxson) was saying about her access to McCain that he personally confronted her at a Washington restaurant and told her to stay away from the senator.

The McCain campaign has denounced the Times story as a "smear campaign" and harshly criticized the paper for publishing a report saying that anonymous aides worried there might have been an improper relationship between Iseman and McCain. McCain, who called the charges "not true," also told reporters Thursday in a news conference that he was unaware of any confrontation Weaver might have had with Iseman.

The deposition that McCain gave came in the course of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of his landmark campaign finance reform law, known as McCain-Feingold. The suit sheds no new light on the nature of the senator's dealings with Iseman, but it does include a lengthy discussion of his dealings with the company that hired her, including some statements by the senator that could raise additional questions for his campaign.

In the deposition, noted First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams (who was representing the lawsuit's lead plaintiff, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell) grilled McCain about the four trips he took aboard Paxson's corporate jet to campaign events and the $20,000 in campaign contributions he had received from the company's executives during the period the firm was pressing him to intervene with federal regulators.

Asked at one point if Paxson's lobbyist (Abrams never mentions Iseman's name) had accompanied him on any of the trips he took aboard the Paxson corporate jet, McCain responded, "I do not recall." (McCain's campaign confirmed this week that Iseman did fly on one trip returning to Washington from a campaign fund-raiser in Florida.)

At another point Abrams asked McCain if, "looking back on the events with Mr. Paxson, the contributions, the jets, everything you and I have just talked about, do you believe that it would have been justified for a member of the public to say there is at least an appearance of corruption here?"

"Absolutely," McCain replied. "And when I took a thousand dollars or any other hard-money contribution from anybody who does business before the Congress of the United States, then that allegation is justified as well. Because the taint affects all of us." Elsewhere McCain said about his dealings with Paxson, "As I said before, I believe that there could possibly be an appearance of corruption because this system has tainted all of us."

Abrams's purpose at the time was not especially damaging to McCain. The lawyer's argument, which he later unsuccessfully made to the Supreme Court, was that the "appearance of corruption" was relatively commonplace in Washington and therefore too amorphous a standard to justify the intrusion on free speech that Congress made by passing a law that restricted big-money campaign donations and last-minute campaign advertising by outside groups.

In his deposition McCain got the opportunity to emphasize some of the same points his campaign made in 2000 and again this week about his letters to the FCC at Paxson's behest: that he never pressed the agency to rule in Paxson's favor, only to make a decision one way or another.

"My job as chairman of the committee, Mr. Abrams, is to see that bureaucracies do function," McCain said. "Bureaucracies are notorious for not functioning and not making decisions. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint. Not about whether the commission acted favorably or unfavorably, but that the commission act."

But despite McCain's own somewhat detailed descriptions of his conversations with Paxson about the matter in the deposition, his campaign Thursday night stuck with its original statement that the senator never discussed the issue at all with the communications executive or his lobbyist.

"We do not think there is a contradiction here," campaign spokeswoman Ann Begeman e-mailed NEWSWEEK after being asked about the senator's sworn testimony five and a half years ago. "We do not have the transcript you excerpted and do not know the exact questions Senator McCain was asked, but it appears that Senator McCain, when speaking of being contacted by Paxson, was speaking in shorthand of his staff being contacted by representatives of Paxson. Senator McCain does not recall being asked directly by Paxson or any representative of him or by Alcalde & Fay to contact the FCC regarding the Pittsburgh license transaction.

"Senator McCain's staff recalls meeting with representatives of Paxson, and staff was asked to contact the FCC on behalf of Senator McCain," Begemen continued. "The staff relayed to Senator McCain the message from Paxson's representatives. But we have checked the records of the Senator's 1999 schedule and it does not appear there were any meetings between Senator McCain and Paxson or any representative of Paxson regarding the issue."

There appears to be no dispute that Paxson lobbyist Iseman did indeed contact McCain's top communications aide at the time about the Pittsburgh license issue. Mark Buse, who then served as McCain's chief of staff at the Commerce Committee and is now chief of staff in his Senate office, recalled to NEWSWEEK that Iseman came by his office, talked to him about the issue before the FCC, and left behind briefing material that he used to draft the letters under McCain's signature. He said there was nothing unusual about this. "That's Lobbying 101," Buse said. "You leave paper behind."

But the campaign's insistence that McCain himself never talked to Paxson about the issue seems hard to square with the contents of his testimony in the McCain-Feingold case.

Abrams, for example, at one point cited the somewhat technical contents of one of his letters to the FCC and then asked the witness, "where did you get information of that sort, Senator McCain?"

McCain replied: "I was briefed by my staff."

Abrams then followed up: "Do you know were they got the information?"

"No," McCain replied. "But I would add, I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue."

"You were?"

"Yes."

Abrams then asked McCain: "Can you tell us what you said and what he said about it?"

McCain: "That he had applied to purchase this station and that he wanted to purchase it. And that there had been a numerous year delay with the FCC reaching a decision. And he wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I said, 'I would be glad to write a letter asking them to act, but I will not write a letter, I cannot write a letter asking them to approve or deny, because then that would be an interference in their activities. I think everybody is entitled to a decision. But I can't ask for a favorable disposition for you'."

Abrams a few moments later asked: "Did you speak to the company's lobbyist about these matters?"

McCain: "I don't recall if it was Mr. Paxson or the company's lobbyist or both."

Abrams: "But you did speak to him?"

McCain: "I'm sure I spoke with him, yes."