McCain Campaign Manager…and Yanukovich Posted by Moira Whelan

Most Democracy Arsenal readers will remember the Orange Revolution, and the dirty tricks played before and after by Viktor Yanukovich…including the belief that he was behind efforts to poison his opponent, Viktor Yuschenko.

This story by ABC indicates that some in the McCain camp are getting edgy about Rick Davis's past life:

The McCain campaign is strongly denying the paper's reporting that in 2005, a White House National Security Council staffer called John McCain's Senate office to complain that Rick Davis, at the time a GOP lobbyist, was "undercutting American policy on Ukraine" by ferrying a Kremlin-backed politician, Viktor Yanukovich, around Washington D.C., the paper reported.

My own anecdotal conversations with people who run in the Russia and Eastern Europe circles indicate that Rick Davis was a fixture and a well-known advocate for Yanukovich. What’s interesting was that Davis never filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act that he did work for Yanukovich and today denied he ever did it.

This story is going to be one to watch.