BY MARY JACOBY
For a decade, Randy Scheunemann has been a campaign staffer to John McCain, an ideological ally in the fight to contain Russian power-and a lobbyist seeking the Arizona senator's support for former Soviet states.
Their long relationship is typical in Washington, where Sen.McCain has served in Congress since 1983, and it helps illustrate why the Republican presidential candidate is on the defensive over ties to lobbyists.
The lobbying group Mr. Scheunemann founded in 2001, Orion Strategies LLC, has earned $2.6 million from clients for whom Mr. Scheunemann directly lobbied Sen. McCain and his staff, Justice Department records show.
In March, as scrutiny intensified, Mr. Scheunemann, who is the campaign's top foreign-policy staffer, sent a letter to the Justice Department's offace for foreign-client lobbying registrations saying he had stopped working for clients such as Macedonia and Georgia. However, his company's contracts with those countries, worth a combined $240,000, appear still to be in effect. A spokeswoman for the Georgian Embassy in Washington said the country's contract with Orion is active. The Macedonian contract is listed as active in Justice Department records.
Mr. Scheunemann, 48 years old, didn't respond to requests for comment.
The McCain campaign has been rocked in recent days by forced departures of high-profile advisers after news reports on their past lobbying for controversial clients. The campaign issued a new policy banning all staffers from lobbying, an attempt to help protect Sen. McCain's reputation as a reformer devoted to fighting special interests.
Mr. Scheunemann is "in compliance with the policy," campaign spokesman Brian Rogers said. Mr. Rogers declined to discuss the situation in detail.
In Washington, relationships between lobbyists and politicianseven those who make a career battling lobbyists-are not easily disentangled. Charlie Black, a McCain campaign senior adviser, has represented foreign leaders accused of corruption and human-rights abuses, such as Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. He ended his relationship with BKSH&Associates Worldwide this year. Outside advisers and fund-raisers for the campaign inelude Wayne Berman, a registered lobbyist for an Indiana food-packaging company that sells to the Defense Department.
The pressure on Sen. McCain to separate himself from lobbyists is coming from Democratic advocacy groups and Democratic front-runner Sen. Barack Obama, who banned federal lobbyists from his campaign staff and fund-raising networks. Lobbyists still volunteer for the Illinois Democrat and could work in his administration, although not in areas affecting their past clients, the campaign has said.
Mr. Scheunemann's foreign clients aren't controversial. But his political and ideological relationship with Sen. McCain has blurred the lines between his roles as lobbyist and aide.
Mr. Scheunemann was a foreignpolicy adviser in the mid-1990s to then-Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Mr. Scheunemane helped found the bipartisan Committee to Expand NATO, an influential group of foreign-policy experts.
Expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization "has been a pillar of Sen. McCain's foreign policy," said Julianne Smith, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and an informal adviser to Sen. Obama.
In 2000, Mr. Scheunemann was an adviser in Sen. McCain's unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination. After Sen. McCainwas defeated, Mr. Scheunemann started Orion Strategies in 2001. Orion quickly signed contracts with Romania and Latviaworth a combined $240,000 to help them win NATO admission. Contracts with Georgia, Macedonia and Taiwan followed. Like Romania and Latvia, they are all U.S. allies.
Over the years, Mr. Scheunemann and his partner, Michael Mitchell, repeatedly lobbied Sen. McCain and his Senate staff on behalf of foreign clients, the Justice Department records show. The company also worked for Taiwan.
In 2005, Mr. Scheunemann asked Sen. McCain to introduce a Senate resolution expressing support for peace in the Russia-influenced region of South Ossetia that wants to break away from Georgia, the records show. Such resolutions are symbolic but helpful to countries in diplomatic relations. The Senate approved Sen. McCain's resolution in December 2005.
Sen. McCain has endorsed Georgia's goal of entering NATO, a matter for which the country hired Mr. Scheunemann to lobby. In 2006, Sen. McCain gave a speech at the Munich Conference on Security in Germany in which he said Georgia should enter NATO, a text of his speech on the conference Web site shows.
Last year, while he worked on the McCain presidential campaign, Mr. Scheunemann continued to lobby members of Congress and administration officials, Justice Department records show. One of his contacts was Richard Fontaine, an aide in Sen. McCain's Senate office, whom Mr. Scheunemann called in November to discuss Georgia, the records show.
"Sen. McCain's been for NATO enlargement since the mid-1990s," said Mr. Rogers, the McCain spokesman. "His record speaks for itself."
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