Texan Denies Selling Access to Bush Aides for Library $$$
Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 10:19 pmWASHINGTON  A House committee on Monday launched an investigation of Houston businessman Stephen Payne, probing whether he violated federal law by suggesting he could arrange access to top White House aides in return for a large donation to the Bush presidential library being planned in Dallas.
The development came a day after Payne was enmeshed in a sting operation set up by a London newspaper, which surreptitiously filmed him discussing library contributions during a meeting with a Central Asian politician and a reporter posing as an associate.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, informed Payne late Monday that his panel would look into a London newspaper report that the Texan solicited contributions from officials in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan in return for high-level access.
"If true, this raises serious concerns about the ways in which foreign interests might be secretly influencing large donations to the library," Waxman wrote in a letter to Payne.
Payne, a GOP activist who has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for President Bush, told the Houston Chronicle that he had done nothing wrong and simply had hoped to sign the former president of Kyrgyzstan as a client.
"I was not there to raise money for the library, I have no interest in the library. I was there to get a client," Payne said.
Payne said the London reporter kept asking him leading questions and accused the newspaper of editing out sections of the conversation that would clear him of suspicion.
The saga unspooled after a meeting last week at a London hotel, where Payne met with a man known as Eric Dos, a Kazakh politician he first met on a pipeline project in 2005.
for more on the story from The Houston Chronicle, go to:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5887988.html
The development came a day after Payne was enmeshed in a sting operation set up by a London newspaper, which surreptitiously filmed him discussing library contributions during a meeting with a Central Asian politician and a reporter posing as an associate.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, informed Payne late Monday that his panel would look into a London newspaper report that the Texan solicited contributions from officials in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan in return for high-level access.
"If true, this raises serious concerns about the ways in which foreign interests might be secretly influencing large donations to the library," Waxman wrote in a letter to Payne.
Payne, a GOP activist who has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for President Bush, told the Houston Chronicle that he had done nothing wrong and simply had hoped to sign the former president of Kyrgyzstan as a client.
"I was not there to raise money for the library, I have no interest in the library. I was there to get a client," Payne said.
Payne said the London reporter kept asking him leading questions and accused the newspaper of editing out sections of the conversation that would clear him of suspicion.
The saga unspooled after a meeting last week at a London hotel, where Payne met with a man known as Eric Dos, a Kazakh politician he first met on a pipeline project in 2005.
for more on the story from The Houston Chronicle, go to:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5887988.html