Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly (often simply Black, Manafort) was a lobbying firm based in

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and formed in 1980 by Roger Stone,

Paul Manafort Paul John Manafort Jr. (; born April 1, 1949) is an American lobbyist, political consultant, and attorney. A long-time Republican Party campaign consultant, he chaired the Trump presidential campaign from June to August 2016. Manafort served ...

and Charles Black.

History

As Black, Manafort & Stone, the firm was one of the first political consulting groups to work for Ronald Reagan's presidential candidacy in 1980,"A Political Power Broker"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', June 21, 1989 and would later also have extensive connections to the presidential administrations of

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

and

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

was this firm's first client. In 1984 it was renamed to Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly (BMSK) & associates, after

Peter G. Kelly Peter G. Kelly (born 1938), also known as Peter Galbraith Kelly Sr., is an American lobbyist and political consultant. He received the 2015 Luminary Award in The World Affairs Council of CT. Education After education at Georgetown University and ...

was recruited. The firm has represented, and lobbied the US Congress on behalf of, numerous foreign governments and heads of state from both representative democracies and unelected dictatorships including Mohamed Siad Barre of

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, dictator

Ferdinand Marcos Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. ( , , ; September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino politician, lawyer, dictator, and kleptocrat who was the 10th president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled under martial ...

of the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

, dictator

Mobutu Sese Seko Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997) was a Congolese politician and military officer who was the president of Zaire from 1965 to 1997 (known as the Democratic Republic o ...

Zaire Zaire (, ), officially the Republic of Zaire (french: République du Zaïre, link=no, ), was a Congolese state from 1971 to 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Zaire was, ...

, and

Jonas Savimbi Jonas Malheiro Savimbi (; 3 August 1934 – 22 February 2002) was an Angolan revolutionary politician and rebel military leader who founded and led the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). UNITA waged a guerrilla war agai ...

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. According to "The Torturer's Lobby", a report published by

The Center for Public Integrity The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) is an American nonprofit investigative journalism organization whose stated mission is "to reveal abuses of power, corruption and dereliction of duty by powerful public and private institutions in order to ...

, the firm received $3.3 million in the early 1990s for their work with dictators. During the 1988 presidential campaign in the United States, it was disclosed that Black, Manafort retained the island nation of the Bahamas as a client at a time its leadership was being attacked for alleged ties to drug traffickers. BMSK officials insisted that they intended only to help the Bahamas obtain more United States aid for efforts to curb drug smugglers. On January 1, 1991, BMSK was acquired by

Burson-Marsteller Burson Cohn & Wolfe is a multinational public relations and communications firm, headquartered in New York City. In February 2018, parent WPP Group PLC announced that it had merged its subsidiaries Cohn & Wolfe with Burson-Marsteller. The comb ...

who between 1989 and 1994 had acquired Gold & Liebengood which was founded by Martin B. Gold and

Howard Scholer Liebengood Howard Scholer Liebengood (December 29, 1942 – January 13, 2005) was an American lawyer and lobbyist. A protégé of Senator Howard Baker, he served as Sergeant at Arms of the United States Senate from 1981 to 1983 before leaving to become a ...

in 1984. BMSK merged with Gold & Liebengood to form

BKSH & Associates Black, Kelly, Scruggs & Healey, also known as BKSH & Associates was a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm with principals Charles R. Black Jr., Peter G. Kelly, John F. Scruggs, and James Healey which was merged with Timmons & Company in 2010 to ...

in 1996. According to

Mustafa Nayyem Mustafa Masi Nayyem ( uk, Мустафа Найєм, ps, مصطفی نعیم) is an Afghan-Ukrainian journalist, MP, lecturer at the Kyiv School of Economics, and public figure who was influential in sparking the Euromaidan in Ukraine. Formerly, ...

in 2007, the

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

office of BMSK was headed by Leonid Avrashov ( uk, Леонід Аврашов) who, according to

Serhiy Leshchenko Serhiy Leshchenko ( uk, Сергій Анатолійович Лещенко, 30 August, 1980) is a Ukraine, Ukrainian ex-journalist, politician and public figure, Member of Parliament (8th Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada). From 2002 until 2014 Leshch ...

in 2017, also had a credit card with Rinat Akhmetov's

First Ukrainian International Bank The First Ukrainian International Bank or FUIB (Ukrainian: Перший Український Міжнародний Банк) is one of the leading Ukrainian banks, largely owned by the oligarch Rinat Akhmetov associated SCM Holdings. It was fo ...

(PUMB) ( uk, Перший український міжнародний банк (ПУМБ)). Domestically the firm represented

Bethlehem Steel The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. For most of the 20th century, it was one of the world's largest steel producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its succe ...

and Tobacco Institute, helped elect Senators

Phil Gramm William Philip Gramm (born July 8, 1942) is an American economist and politician who represented Texas in both chambers of Congress. Though he began his political career as a Democrat, Gramm switched to the Republican Party in 1983. Gramm was ...

Jesse Helms Jesse Alexander Helms Jr. (October 18, 1921 – July 4, 2008) was an American politician. A leader in the conservative movement, he served as a senator from North Carolina from 1973 to 2003. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ...

, Charles McCurdy Mathias Jr., Arlen Specter,

Paula Hawkins Paula Hawkins may refer to: * Paula Hawkins (author) (born 1972), British novelist * Paula Hawkins (politician) Paula Hawkins (née Fickes; January 24, 1927 – December 4, 2009) was an American politician from Florida. She is the only woman el ...

and David F. Durenberger—and worked on legislation that benefitted the firm's clients. Both Paul Manafort and Roger Stone worked on and held important positions in the

2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump The 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump was formally launched on June 16, 2015, at Trump Tower in New York City. Trump was the Republican nominee for President of the United States in the 2016 election, having won the most state prim ...

. Stone was convicted of seven felony charges due to his work on the Trump campaign.

Personnel

Principals

Charles R. Black Jr. Charles R. Black Jr. (born October 11, 1947) is the Founding Chairman of Prime Policy Group, a public affairs firm which is a subsidiary of Burson-Marsteller Global Public Relations. Prime Policy Group was formed with the merger of Martin B. Go ...

Paul J. Manafort Paul John Manafort Jr. (; born April 1, 1949) is an American lobbyist, political consultant, and attorney. A long-time Republican Party campaign consultant, he chaired the Trump presidential campaign from June to August 2016. Manafort served ...

Roger J. Stone Roger Jason Stone (born Roger Joseph Stone Jr.; August 27, 1952) is an American conservative political consultant and lobbyist. Since the 1970s, Stone has worked on the campaigns of Republican politicians, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reag ...

* R. Scott Pastrick * James C. Healey, Jr.

Others

* Lee Atwater became a senior partner in the political-consulting function of the firm (the partners claimed the firm kept political and lobbying functions separate) the day after President Reagan defeated Walter F. Mondale in 1984.

References

External links