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

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, and formed in 1980 by

Roger Stone Roger Jason Stone (born Roger Joseph Stone Jr.; August 27, 1952) is an American Political consulting, political consultant and lobbyist. He is Donald Trump's longest-serving political adviser, best known for the Mueller special counsel investi ...

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

and Charles Black and purchased in 1991 by

Burson-Marsteller Burson (formerly Burson Cohn & Wolfe (BCW)) is a global public relations and communications firm, headquartered in New York City, focused on building reputation for clients. In February 2018, parent WPP Group PLC announced that it had merged it ...

. The firm lobbied on behalf of prominent Republicans, businesses and foreign governments.

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'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

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

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushBefore the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election, he was usually referred to simply as "George Bush" but became more commonly known as "George H. W. Bush", "Bush Senior," "Bush 41," and even "Bush th ...

and

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

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

Peter G. Kelly Peter Galbraith Kelly Sr. (born 1938) 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 Yale Law School. Kelly founded ...

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

Ferdinand Marcos Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino lawyer, politician, dictator, and Kleptocracy, kleptocrat who served as the tenth president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled the c ...

of the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

Mohamed Siad Barre Mohammed Siad Barre (, Osmanya script: , ''Muhammad Ziād Barīy''; 6 October 1919 – 2 January 1995) was a Somali military officer, politician, and revolutionary who served as the third president of Somalia from 21 October 1969 to 26 Ja ...

Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...

, dictator

Mobutu Sese Seko Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga ( ; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997), often shortened to Mobutu Sese Seko or Mobutu and also known by his initials MSS, was a Congolese politician and military officer ...

Zaire Zaire, officially the Republic of Zaire, was the name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1971 to 18 May 1997. Located in Central Africa, it was, by area, the third-largest country in Africa after Sudan and Algeria, and the 11th-la ...

, and

Jonas Savimbi Jonas Malheiro Sidónio Sakaita 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 was on ...

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

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

The Center for Public Integrity ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

, by 1991-1992 their work with dictators brought in $3.3 million in those 2 years. During the 1988 presidential campaign in the United States, it was disclosed that BMSK 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. Domestically the firm represented

Bethlehem Steel The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Until its closure in 2003, it was one of the world's largest steel-producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its success ...

, Rupert Murdoch's

News Corp The second and current incarnation of News Corporation, doing business as News Corp, is an American mass media and publishing company headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The company was formed on ...

, the

Tobacco Institute The Tobacco Institute, Inc. was a United States tobacco industry trade group, founded in 1958 by the American tobacco industry. It was dissolved in 1998 as part of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.The Tobacco Institute's headquarters were ...

, and 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 United States Congress, Congress. Though he began his political career as a Democratic Party (United States), Democrat, Gr ...

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

, Charles McCurdy Mathias Jr.,

Arlen Specter Arlen Specter (February 12, 1930 – October 14, 2012) was an American lawyer, author and politician who served as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania from 1981 to 2011. Specter was a Democrat from 1951 to 1965, then a Republican fr ...

, Paula Hawkins and David F. Durenberger—and worked on legislation that benefitted the firm's clients. On January 1, 1991, BMSK was acquired by

who between 1989 and 1994 had acquired Gold & Liebengood which was founded by Martin B. Gold and Howard Scholer Liebengood in 1984. Manafort left in 1995 to start a new firm. 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 ...

in 1996. According to

Mustafa Nayyem Mustafa Masi Nayyem (, ; born June 28, 1981) 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. Since January 2023 Nayyem had been the hea ...

in 2007, the

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

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

Serhiy Leshchenko Serhiy Leshchenko (, 30 August, 1980) is a Ukrainian ex-journalist, politician and public figure, Member of Parliament ( 8th Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada). From 2002 until 2014, Leshchenko worked as a Deputy Editor-in-Chief and as a special cor ...

in 2017, also had a credit card with oligarch

Rinat Akhmetov Rinat Leonidovych Akhmetov (born 21 September 1966) is a Ukrainian billionaire and businessman. He is the founder and president of international investment group System Capital Management (SCM), and is the wealthiest man in Ukraine. Akhmetov i ...

's First Ukrainian International Bank (PUMB) ().

Personnel

Principals

Charles R. Black Jr. Charles R. Black Jr. (born October 11, 1947) is an American lobbyist and businessman, who is the Founding Chairman of Prime Policy Group, a public affairs firm which is now a subsidiary of Burson Cohn & Wolfe. Prime Policy Group was formed with ...

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

Others

Lee Atwater Harvey LeRoy "Lee" Atwater (February 27, 1951 – March 29, 1991) was an American political consultant and strategist for the Republican Party. He was an adviser to Republican U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and chairman ...

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

Black, Manafort, Stone, Kelly
at

SourceWatch The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a progressive nonprofit watchdog and advocacy organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. CMD publishes ExposedbyCMD.org, SourceWatch.org, and ALECexposed.org. History CMD was founded in 1993 by prog ...