Free Republic

A South African company in the spotlight for paying $100,000 in speaking fees to White House adviser David Plouffe is also in business with a Liberian official under U.N. sanctions for his ties to convicted war criminal and former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor. That's among the latest details to emerge on the connections involving MTN Group, a subsidiary of which paid President Obama's former campaign manager for engagements in late 2010, shortly before he joined the White House. The ties to Liberia's bloody Taylor era center on Benoni Urey, who was commissioner of maritime affairs in Liberia during Taylor's reign....

David Plouffe, a senior White House adviser who was President Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, accepted a $100,000 speaking fee in 2010 from an affiliate of a company doing business with Iran’s government. A subsidiary of MTN Group, a South Africa-based telecommunications company, paid Plouffe for two speeches he made in Nigeria in December 2010, about a month before he joined the White House staff. Since Plouffe’s speeches, MTN Group has come under intensified scrutiny from U.S. authorities because of its activities in Iran and Syria, which are under international sanctions intended to limit the countries’ access to sensitive technology. At...

Republicans pounced on a report Monday that said top White House adviser David Plouffe took a $100,000 speaking fee from an Iran-tied firm whose technology may have been used to track dissidents, claiming Plouffe's involvement could represent a "loophole" in sanctions against the regime. The White House rejects the notion that anything improper took place. According to The Washington Post, Plouffe was paid for two speeches he made in Nigeria in December 2010 about a month before joining the White House -- and apparently before the company hosting him started coming under heavy scrutiny from the Obama administration. The White...