Clark Details a Lucrative Stint as Security Lobbyist

Retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark pitched a security software firm to high-ranking Bush administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, earning nearly $500,000 for his lobbying work, according to records provided by the Democratic presidential contender’s campaign.

Clark also contacted the CIA, FBI, Defense Intelligence Agency and other federal agencies in an attempt to land Acxiom Corp. a contract for the controversial CAPPS II airline passenger screening system. The Little Rock, Ark.-based company won a contract to help develop the system.

The documents show how, less than two years after he retired from the Army as a four-star general, Clark entered the corridors of power in Washington and was paid well for his work.

Clark’s lobbying for Acxiom and others was public knowledge, but the documents offer details that were not previously available.

The campaign placed the documents in its Manchester “reading room,” which contains other details of Clark’s finances and life, in an effort to head off increasingly biting words and mailers from presidential rivals, especially Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry.

According to the documents, which are based on the recollections of Clark and Acxiom officials, as well as Acxiom records, Clark also lobbied Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, officials from the Secret Service and British Transportation Department, and others.

CAPPS II is designed to compile data on air travelers and flag potential terrorists. Many civil liberties groups have opposed it as a violation of privacy rights.

Clark frequently criticizes the Bush administration for chipping away at civil liberties, and he opposes portions of the USA Patriot Act, including provisions that allow law enforcement officials to conduct some wiretaps without a warrant. Clark is increasingly being asked on the campaign trail why, if he is concerned about privacy issues, did he work for a company that investigates travelers’ backgrounds?

At one recent event, he said he felt it was his patriotic duty to try and make the country safer by working for Acxiom following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Rival campaigns have focused less on the civil liberties question than on attacking Clark for profiting from contacts built over decades in the military.

The Kerry campaign has sent fliers to potential New Hampshire voters criticizing the general’s lobbying, and in an e-mail sent to reporters over the weekend, Kerry spokesman Mark Kornblau said, “Wes Clark was a high-paid Republican Washington lobbyist who cashed in on his military record.”

Before starting the race in September, Clark was registered as an “unaffiliated” voter in Arkansas. He has said he voted for Republican presidents in the 1970s and ‘80s, and began supporting Democrats beginning with Bill Clinton in 1992.

The Clark campaign has called on Kerry, as well as Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who also has criticized Clark’s lobbying work, to reveal all their meetings with lobbyists.

Bill Buck, Clark’s press secretary, said Monday that Clark is “running a positive campaign. Sen. Kerry, who in Iowa is decrying negative campaigning, is running one of the most negative campaigns” in New Hampshire.