Vice Chairman of Swiss bank UBS, and their U.S. lobbyist until April 2008. According to Newsweek, UBS is the focus of congressional and Justice Department investigations into schemes that enabled wealthy Americans to evade income taxes by stashing their money in overseas havens.

Gramm's former congressional aide, John Savercool, is still registered to lobby for UBS on numerous issues, including a bill cosponsored by Sen. Barack Obama that would crack down on foreign tax havens.

Rick Davis
Campaign Manager

Rightsfield.com: Founded Davis, Manafort & Freedman, Inc., through which he served clients ranging from Nigerian dictator Gen. Sani Abacha to “mafia-like” Argentine legislator Alberto Pierri.

Davis has had a long association with McCain — one tangled up in webs of special influence. In 1999, while Davis was working for McCain, two of his firm’s clients, COMSAT and SBC, “had major (and controversial) mergers pending before the Federal Communications Commission in 1999, and both mergers were approved.” The FCC was under the legislative oversight authority of McCain’s Commerce Committee, yet McCain refused to recuse himself from the proceedings.

Davis was also a central figure in McCain’s Reform Institute scandal, an under-reported affair in which the “Maverick” Senator used a nonprofit, tax-exempt “reform” organization to trade political favors for corporate cash."

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WaPo: In August 2006, Davis was present again at a social gathering that was also attended by McCain and Deripaska, this time in Montenegro, another Eastern European country in which Davis's firm was working. The three were among a few dozen people dining at a restaurant during an official Senate trip.

Davis was a paid consultant to the governing party in Montenegro and had advised it on a just-ratified independence referendum, Salter said. That was why he was at the dinner, he added.

Afterward, a group from the dinner took boats out to a nearby yacht moored in the Adriatic Sea, where champagne and pastries were served, partly in honor of McCain's 70th birthday.

Charlie Black

Charles R. Black Jr. is chair of BKSH, a powerful DC lobbying firm that has earned $57,426,252 in lobbying fees since 1998 from hundreds of corporations, led by Philip Morris, AT&T, JP Morgan, and GE.

a seasoned Republican operative whose client roster dates back to such paragons as the late Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos and several African dictators, and more recently has featured Erik Prince, the mercenary entrepreneur who founded Blackwater.

Vicki Iseman

Vicki Iseman has represented Paxson since 1998, longer than any of her other clients. The Washington Post reports that Iseman’s clients have given nearly $85,000 to McCain campaigns since 2000.

McCain initially supported legislation that would have forced Paxson and handful of broadcasters — but not the great bulk of television stations — off the air by December 31, 2006. Bud Paxson himself personally testified about this bill with “fear and trepidation” at a hearing on September 8, 2004.

Two weeks later, McCain had reversed himself. He now supported legislation that would grant two-year reprieve for Paxson — and instead force all broadcasters to stop transmitting analog television by December 31, 2008. Paxson and his lobbyists, including Iseman, were working at this time for just such a change.

Hector Alcade

Washington Post 2/23/08: The second letter [from McCain to the FCC on behalf of Paxson] came on Dec. 10, a day after the company's jet ferried McCain to a Florida fundraiser aboard a yacht in West Palm Beach. The fundraiser was arranged by Hector Alcalde of Alcalde & Fay and was hosted by a cruise line that Alcalde had represented, Paxson said. Paxson said he attended the fundraiser.

Emptywheel 2/23/08: Paxson flew McCain to a fundraiser in FL, organized by Iseman's boss, and probably hosted at the house of the owner of Carnival Cruise lines. Paxson, Iseman, McCain, Alcalde--they all were there. In other words, this was Alcalde and Fay as a company sponsoring McCain's campaign, not just individual clients of Iseman's who had businses with McCain.

Wayne Berman, who is deputy finance chairman of the McCain campaign and a veteran lobbyist whose clients include Verizon and Verizon Wireless, dismissed the notion that some lobbyists might be raising money for Mr. McCain to curry influence

The NYTimes could also say "Wayne Berman, of the McCain campaign and lobbyist for ChevronTexaco, and chairman of Federalist Lobbying as well as an insurance broker." Or "friend of Tom DeLay?" Or how about "AmeriQuest lobbyist Wayne Berman, whose client had interests before the Commerce Committee of which McCain was chairman." Wouldn't that be informative for the public to dig further into at some point before November?