Stephen Payne (lobbyist)

:"For other people named Stephen Payne, see Stephen Payne".Stephen Prentiss Payne (born May 8, 1964) is an American lobbyist from Houston, Texas. He has also served as a governmental, energy, international affairs, and international business development consultant, corporate and political adviser, foreign diplomat, businessman, fundraiser, and former advisor (since June 2007) to the United States Department of Homeland Security's SecureBorders and Open Doors Advisory Committee (SBODAC),cite news
last = Foggo
first = Daniel
coauthors = Steven Swinford
title = President Bush lobbyist Stephen Payne in ‘bribes’ row quits
publisher = The Times
date = July 20, 2008
url = http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4364429.ece
accessdate = 2008-07-21] in connection with which he held a U.S. security clearance. [http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2008-07-21-1503479250_x.htm USA Today AP Story] ]

In July 2008 he attracted international attention after being secretly videotaped discussing a US$750,000.00 lobbying contract offering access to senior U.S. officials and suggesting a US$250,000.00 donation to the future presidential library of U.S. president George W. Bush.cite news
last = Foggo
first = Daniel
title = President George W Bush lobbyist in ‘cash for access’ row
publisher = The Times
date = July 13, 2008
url = http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4322684.ece
accessdate = 2008-07-21]

Early life

Payne is the son of Jerry and Marianne Payne, and grew up in Houston, Texas. His father was a longtime adviser of the Texas state senator J. E. "Buster" Brown. [http://www.houstonpress.com/1996-10-17/news/get-it-in-writing/full Get It in Writing, page 1 - News - Houston Press - Houston Press ] ]

Professional activities

Payne is the president of the consulting firm Payne Consulting, which he founded in 1996; [http://www.nndb.com/people/358/000119001/ Stephen Payne] NNDB] president of Worldwide Strategic Partners (an international relations, international business development, and energy development firm); [http://www.allianceandco.com/payne.html Stephen P. Payne] Alliance & Co.] president of Worldwide Strategic Energy (a sister company to Worldwide Strategic Partners, which has a subsidiary called Caspian Alliance Inc.); [ [http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3403983 Democratic Underground] ] co-founder of Alliance & Co. (an international investment advisory and asset management firm), founder and managing partner of the investment firm Envion Worldwide, [http://www.envionworldwide.com/payne.html Stephen P. Payne] Envion Worldwide ] and Strategic Limited Partner for the global investment firm MSH Ventures. [http://mshventures.com/payne.html Stephen P. Payne] MSH Ventures]

Payne's clients have included JPMorgan Chase, [http://www.tpj.org/docs/pioneers/pioneers_view.jsp?id=7 Stephen P. Payne] Texans for Public Justice] Morgan Stanley, United Space Alliance, [http://hotair.cachefly.net/images/2008-07/wsp-partners.htm Partners - Stephen P. Payne] Worldwide Strategic Partners] SAP Software, Nextel Communications, Continental Airlines, [http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/payne.pdf WSP Corporate Profile] Worldwide Strategic Partners] Yukos Oil, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Nuclear Solutions, Inc. [cite press release
title = Nuclear Solutions, Inc. Retains Worldwide Strategic Partners, Inc. -- Augments Green Fuel Project Development Team
publisher = Nuclear Solutions, Inc.
date = July 17, 2007
url = http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:F3_h8MW1WbMJ:biz.yahoo.com/iw/070717/0278847.html
accessdate = 2008-07-24] Payne also represented Itera, one Russia's largest independent natural gas producers. [ [http://www.oilandgaseurasia.com/articles/p/80/article/684/ Oil & Gas Eurasia] ]

He has served as Honorary Consul General for the Republic of Latvia for the Texas region (with headquarters in Houston) since 1999, [ [http://www.houston.org/tools/committeeRoster.asp?committee=CONSULAR Consular Corps] Greater Houston Partnership] and has served as an adviser to Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga on political and economic issues. In 2004, President Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia awarded Payne Latvia's highest state honor, the Order of the Three Stars, for his work in helping Latvia become a NATO member. [ [http://www.am.gov.lv/en/news/Newsletters/CurrentLatvia/2004/November/582/ Three Star Order Recipients (2004) Latvian Foreign Ministry] ] For the 2006 NATO Summit in Riga, Latvia, Payne was appointed by NATO to lead a think tank conference panel discussion on energy security and chair a NATO Future Leaders Forum bringing together up-and-coming leaders from 35 NATO member and partner countries. [ [http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/2006/0611-riga/events.htm Riga Summit (NATO) Website] ] He has also served on the board of directors of the U.S.-Baltic Foundation, which promotes free markets in the Baltic States. [ [http://www.usbaltic.org/bod.php Board of Directors] The U.S.-Baltic Foundation]

In a promotional brochure for Worldwide Strategic Partners, he claims to have arranged an official meeting between the Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev and U.S. president George W. Bush in April 2006, something the Azerbaijani president had been attempting for three years. In addition, after Sept 11, 2001, according to Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, Payne played a pivotal in U.S. Pakistan relations, serving as a lobbyist with a group called Team Eagle (also known as Team Barakat). [cite news
last = Tilghman
first = Andrew
title = Stephen Payne Worked For Pakistan After Sept. 11
publisher = TPM Mudracker
date = July 15, 2008
url = http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/07/steven_payne_worked_for_pakist.php
accessdate = 2008-07-24]

He also assisted in having the Uzbek politician Muhammad Salih's name removed from the U.S.'s terrorist watchlist.

Payne also assisted Turkmenistan in assembling a consortium of nations and international firms to build a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan. Payne coordinated a trilateral summit between the Presidents of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan that produced a memorandum of understanding regarding the Turkmen/Afghan natural gas pipeline, restoring the project's viability after years of dormancy at the hands of the Taliban.

He has also lobbied on behalf of the governments of Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates, and performed consulting in Iraq, which he has visited twice. He has also served on the board of the National Defense University Foundation.

The lobbyist Randy Scheunemann has collaborated with Payne's firms since 2002, [http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2008-07-21-1503479250_x.htm USA Today AP Story] ] and Payne has also partnered in his various business ventures with Frank Carlucci, Michael S. Han, Ying Wang, and W. Dieter Zander.

Political activities

He is a member of the Republican Party and has been active in various Republican causes since the late 1980s. During the 1988 presidential campaign, he served as the travel aide to George W. Bush. He was a member of the staff of Kay Bailey Hutchison from 1993 to 1996. In the 1996 presidential election he worked on the Dole-Kemp campaign. He assisted with the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign, the Senate campaign of Pete Coors for Senate, the Restore America PAC, the Rudolph Giuliani Presidential Committee, and the Tom DeLay Congressional Committee. He has also served as a Dubya Ranch Hand (2003), [http://www.nndb.com/people/358/000119001/ Stephen Payne] NNDB] and was a Bush Ranger in 2004 and a Bush Pioneer in 2000 and 2004.

According to a promotional brochure for Worldwide Strategic Partners, Payne served as a "senior presidential advance representative" to George W. Bush, traveling with him to Jordan for the Red Sea Summit in June 2003. The brochure also states that Payne traveled with Dick Cheney to the Middle East in 2002 and 2005, to South Korea in 2004, to Kazakhstan in 2006, and to Afghanistan for the inauguration of Hamid Karzai in December 2004. Payne was a part of a small team of Bush operatives, which included former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, which assisted the 2000 campaign in coordinating the three presidential debates.

In 2001, Payne served as Senior Advisor to the NASA Administrator on White House and Congressional Affairs.

According to Federal Election Commission records, since 1998 Payne has contributed more than $249,000 to Republican candidates and Republican Party committees.cite news
last = Mason
first = Julie
coauthors = Bennett Roth
title = Houstonian denies he tried to sell access to Bush aides
publisher = Houston Chronicle
date = July 14, 2008
url = http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5887988.html
accessdate = 2008-07-24]

candal

In July 2008 Payne was caught on videotape discussing a US$750,000.00 lobbying contract and offering access to senior U.S. officials (including Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Joe Biden) to the exiled Kazakhstani politician Yerzhan Dosmukhamedov (known as Eric Dos for short),cite news
last = Foggo
first = Daniel
coauthors = Steven Swinford
title = Stephen Payne: a hotshot lobbyist who can get you into White House
publisher = The Times
date = July 13, 2008
url = http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4322719.ece
accessdate = 2008-07-24] and suggesting a US$250,000 donation to the future George W. Bush Presidential Library.

In the conversation, which was secretly taped by "The Sunday Times" at a meeting in the restaurant of The Lanesborough hotel in London, Dosmukhamedov claimed that the former Kyrgyz president Askar Akayev wished to meet with the U.S. officials. Payne has claimed that he did nothing wrong, and stated that he was there to recruit a new lobbying client and that it was Dos who first raised the issue of a donation. [http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5887988.html Houston Chronicle] ] [ [http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/07/13/Payne%20emails.pdf Payne's e-mails to Dos] ] "The Sunday Times" has released only 4 minutes and 31 seconds of the hour-long meeting and Payne claims that the unreleased portion of the video would show that his comments were taken out of context and would dispel "The Sunday Times" version of the meeting. [ [http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/071508dnmetbushlibrary.40945d7.html Dallas Morning News] ] Payne was asked to resign from the SBODAC directly following the July 13, 2008 publication of the article.http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4364429.ece President Bush lobbyist Stephen Payne in ‘bribes’ row quits] ] U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, on behalf of the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, wrote a letter to Payne one day later, on July 14, 2008, requesting further details and background about this incident. [cite news
title = Waxman Questions Lobbyist Alleged to Have Traded Access for Presidential Library Funds
publisher = Fox News
date = July 15, 2008
url = http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,382461,00.html
accessdate = 2008-07-24 ] [http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20080714173828.pdf Letter from Henry Waxman to Stephen Payne] U.S. House of Representatives -- Committee on Oversight and Government Reform] Waxman asked Payne to respond by July 23, 2008.

References

External links

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnVMQ4uXZeU Video of Stephen Payne offering access to U.S. officials] YouTube
* [http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20080714173828.pdf July 14, 2008 letter from Henry Waxman to Stephen Payne]
* [http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/payne.pdf Worldwide Strategic Partners brochure]
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/template/2.0-0/element/pictureGalleryPopup.jsp?id=4322370&&offset=0&&sectionName=WorldUSAmericas&randnum=1219874483828 Photo gallery of Stephen Payne with world leaders]
* [http://www.citizensforethics.org/taxonomy/term/1362 Stephen Payne] Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
* [http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/07/13/Payne%20statement.pdf Payne’s rebuttal statement provided to] [http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/07/lobbyist_200k_gift_to_bush_lib.html Mark Silva of the Chicago Tribune] .
* [http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/07/13/Payne%20emails.pdf E-mails between Stephen Payne and Eric Dos]

ee also

*Logan Act