John McCain’s declared policy of not having lobbyists as part of his campaign team has always been full of holes and contradictions. But the fact that his top foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann arranged a phone call between his longtime lobbying client, the Georgian president, and the Republican presidential candidate on the same day that Scheunemann’s lobbying company Orion Strategies signed a $200,000 lobbying renewal contract with the country really takes the cake for conflict of interest. With the Caucasian nation’s territorial integrity in jeopardy after five days of fighting with Russian forces, it’s hard not to wonder whether the Georgian leadership thinks in retrospect that it got its money’s worth from its lobbying investment.
