Exposed: McCain team includes 83 Wall Street lobbyists

RAW STORY

As Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) rails against Wall Street while concurrently benefiting from its largesse, some journalists are getting tired.

David Corn -- an investigative reporter formerly with The Nation and currently reporting for Mother Jones -- has printed a list of 83 Wall Street lobbyists he says are working for or have bundled contributions for McCain. The Democratic National Committee has previously accused McCain of using 177 lobbyists either as campaign aides, advisers or fundraisers.

Corn notes that former Sen. Phil Gramm, the Arizona senator's onetime campaign chairman and economic adviser, slipped into law a provision that kept credit default swaps unregulated, dramatically kindling to the current financial fires.

"Of those 177 lobbyists, according to a Mother Jones review of Senate and House records, at least 83 have in recent years lobbied for the financial industry McCain now attacks," Corn writes. "These are high-paid influence-peddlers who have been working the corridors of the nation's capital to win favors and special treatment for investment banks, securities firms, hedge funds, accounting outfits, and insurance companies. Their clients have included AIG, the newest symbol of corporate excess; Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy on Monday sending the stock market into a tailspin; Merrill Lynch, which was bought out by Bank of America this week; and Washington Mutual, the banking giant that could be the next to fall.

"Among these 83 lobbyists are McCain's chief political adviser, Charlie Black (JP Morgan, Washington Mutual Bank, Freddie Mac, Mortgage Bankers Association of America); McCain's national finance co-chairman, Wayne Berman (AIG, Blackstone, Credit Suisse, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac); the campaign's congressional liaison, John Green (Carlyle Group, Citigroup, Icahn Associates, Fannie Mae); McCain's veep vetter, Arthur Culvahouse (Fannie Mae); and McCain's transition planning chief, William Timmons Sr. (Citigroup, Freddie Mac, Vanguard Group)."

Obama's anti-lobbyist rhetoric, meanwhile, has irked other reporters, among them Newsweek's Michael Isikoff. Isikoff noted that Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, worked for a firm that hoodwinked Illinois consumers by convincing them a California-style crises would befall them unless they increased electric rates.

Axelrod adamantly denied the charge. "I've never lobbied anybody in my life," he said. "I've never talked to any public official on behalf of a corporate client."

Obama also put James Johnson, the former CEO of Fannie Mae, on his vice presidential search committee team. Johnson resigned in June...........

The full McCain list is printed at link