Carmen Group PR
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The Carmen Group is a lobbying firm headed by David Carmen. Notable staff members include former Ronald Reagan aide Lyn Nofziger.
David Keene (Board Member)
Employer: President of National Rifle Association, former Chairman of the American Conservative Union, Managing Associate at Carmen Group Lobbying
Biography:
The son of two Wisconsin labor union organizers, David Keene has been active in national politics since 1968, and has worked for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole and Senator James L. Buckley. Keene served as Chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU) from 1984 until 2011. The ACU organizes the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a gathering of conservative organizations that is frequently co-sponsored by the National Rifle Association. Friends have nicknamed Keene “Baby Doc David Keene,” comparing his ability as a conservative power broker to Jean-Claude Duvalier’s iron-fisted rule of Haiti. High-profile lobbyist Craig Shirley has said of Keene, “In all those years that I’ve known him, there was never an important conservative meeting which he was not part of.” Fellow NRA Board Member Grover Norquist, the founder of Americans for Tax Reform, has called Keene “a conservative Forrest Gump. He has been in the center of all things conservative for decades.” Keene serves as a Managing Associate at Carmen Group Lobbying, a firm that routinely collects over $10 million a year in lobbying fees. After becoming NRA President in May 2011, Keene stated that the organization’s “major goal is to defeat [President Barack] Obama [in the 2012 presidential election].”
Photograph by Gage Skidmore
Controversial Actions and Statements:
In a May 16, 2012
with NRA News, Keene discussed his May 15, 2012 ="" target="blank">editorial in the Washington Times in which he accused the administration of President Barack Obama of “="" target="blank">calling out, investigating and doing their level best to demonize major Romney contributors.” Keene told hosts Cameron Gray and John Popp, .” Keene further accused the Obama Administration of .” Keene accused the mainstream media of being complicit, stating that it was “unforgivable [for the media to have] taken this case and gone after the contributor [.”
Keene defended the practice of blocking access to the identity of political donors, saying, .” Keene also defended “voter security” legislation, comparing it to President Obama publicizing the names of PAC donors. He observed, “If [.”
During the course of the interview, Keene also claimed that President Barack Obama ,” a reference to a January 2012 Obama Administration announcement that the health care reform law requires employers to provide health insurance which covers contraception for women free of charge. President Obama subsequently rejected an exemption for religiously affiliated private employers. Keene portrayed the Obama administration as out of touch with average Americans, saying, .”
Finally, Keene spoke fondly of former U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the creation of the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday. Keene bragged to NRA News, .”
Conspiracy Theory | Republican Party (GOP) | Race | Voting Rights | Women’s Rights
In a May 15, 2012 editorial for the Washington Times, Keene accused President Barack Obama of having a plan to “crucify” political opponents. He made specific reference to an Obama campaign blog that sought to foster transparency about donors to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s political action committee (PAC). “By calling out, investigating and doing their level best to demonize major Romney contributors, [President Obama and his “managers”] clearly are hoping to make others pause before opening their checkbooks to the former Massachusetts governor,” Keene wrote. “These threats are aimed… at the hundreds and perhaps thousands of potential Romney contributors who will slink away lest they, too, become targets of the Obama attack machine.” The previous evening, Idaho businessman and Romney finance co-chair Frank Vandersloot, who was listed on the blog, had made an additional donation of $100,000 to Romney’s PAC on the “Bill O’Reilly Show.” “I think the only response is to make another donation,” Vandersloot noted.
Conspiracy Theory | Republican Party (GOP) |
In the April 2012 issue of America’s 1st Freedom, Keene wrote about the 2012 presidential election, saying, “Everything we believe in is at risk this year.” He accused “[President Barack Obama] and his minions” of “operating under the radar right now,” warning, “If we don’t make every vote count this year, we are going to find ourselves targets of a government dedicated to stripping us of our rights. The future is in our hands and will be determined by what we do.”
Conspiracy Theory | Republican Party (GOP) |
In the March 2012 issue of America’s 1st Freedom, Keene accused New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg of being a “gun-hating politician…willing to ignore the law, the Supreme Court and due process to harass those…who believe in the Right to Keep and Bear Arms or who engage in shooting sports.” Keene also complained that “an anti-gun jurisdiction ruled by someone like New York’s Michael Bloomberg can have a legal firearm owner transiting his fiefdom arrested.”
During the February 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Keene awarded Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s Republican Attorney General, the “Defender of Freedom Award” on behalf of the American Conservative Union and the National Rifle Association. In his remarks, Keene described Cuccinelli as “a man who has never turned his back on his values, has never turned his back on his beliefs, and has never refused to stand up when principle demanded that he do so.” Cuccinelli thanked the NRA for the award, and remarked, “James Monroe voted against the U.S. Constitution because he didn’t think it was cautious enough with respect to federal power. Seems like he had a crystal ball, one might think. But that’s the role of states when the federal government oversteps its boundaries. And the worst example of course is the health care bill [The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act]…signed by the president on March 23, 2010. And about 34 minutes later, give or take, we filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia … We filed suit in the Eastern District of Virginia … Seventeen blocks to the east, 235 years to the day…Patrick Henry gave his ‘Give Me Liberty, Or Give Me Death’ speech … And that seemed very appropriate, given that that legislation represents one of the greatest legislative invasions of liberty in the lifetime of anyone in this room.” Turning to the topic of the environment, Cuccinelli said, “We sued the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency]—which I have taken to calling the Employment Prevention Agency, because they are so good at that—for their greenhouse gas endangerment finding ... And when the EPA said that the CO2 that you are exhaling right now, let’s all annoy [EPA Administrator] Lisa Jackson together [exhales loudly], ‘Hi, Lisa.’ When they passed that regulation in violation of the law they brought on enormous consequences … The only science behind that regulation is political science ... They relied on a U.N. associated scientist; we now know them as the ‘Climate-gate’ scientist.” He also added, “You all are familiar with the National Labor Relations Board’s assault on South Carolina and Boeing. Make no mistake about it, that is an assault on the right to work…the right to hold a job without being coerced into joining a union … We have never seen such an across the board assault on the rule of law by any administration in the lifetime of anyone in this room. It has never happened.”
Conspiracy Theory | Republican Party (GOP) | The Environment | Health Care | Labor
During the February 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Keene was asked by a female veteran of Afghanistan why the National Rifle Association had lobbied for an amendment to the Department of Defense appropriations bill that prevents commanders from talking to suicidal service members about firearms they have in the home. Keene stated that service members "have to deal with their problems, not with the group of tools that they have ... If you have depression and depression creates a suicidal situation if you don't have a gun, you'll use something else. And there are a million ways to commit suicide." Keene's statement about methods of suicide is erroneous. According to research conducted at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, "A suicide attempt with a firearm rarely affords a second chance. Attempts involving drugs or cutting, which account for more than 90% of all suicidal acts, prove fatal far less often." In 2010, 175 military service members committed suicide used a firearm, which represented 62% of the total number of suicides.
Lobbying Activity | Health Care
In the October 2011 issue of America’s 1st Freedom, Keene suggested that Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents purposefully armed criminals during their botched “Fast and Furious” operation. “What [gun dealers] perhaps didn’t fully appreciate is that the [ATF] agents wanted [guns] in the wrong hands and were hoping they would later show up at crime scenes in Mexico to perhaps prove that many of the firearms used there were coming from this country,” Keene wrote.
In September 2011, Diana Hubbard Carr—David Keene’s ex-wife—was convicted of mail fraud and sentenced to a year in prison for her role in embezzling over $300,000 from the American Conservative Union (ACU). Keene chaired ACU during the period that the embezzlement occurred, before resigning in May 2011.
In a September 2011 column for America’s 1st Freedom, Keene suggested that, “Gun control advocates from this country have joined literally hundreds of like-minded Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOS) to work with international anti-gun delegates to develop a treaty that could destroy private gun ownership in this country.” He also warned that “friends of the Second Amendment must be prepared to defend our rights against international as well as domestic enemies.”
Conspiracy Theory | Political Violence
In his address to the NRA’s annual meeting on April 30, 2011, Keene said, 
.”
In a February 28, 2011 op-ed for The Hill, Keene compared Wisconsin public school teachers who opposed anti-union legislation to University of Wisconsin-Madison students who spent their “waking hours doing drugs, demonstrating, occupying campus buildings and dreaming of revolution” during the 1960s. Commenting on Wisconsin legislation that would largely eliminate collective bargaining rights for state employees, Keene wrote, “[[Republican Governor Scott] Walker is doing exactly what he said during his campaign would have to be done to save the Badger State from bankruptcy … That doesn’t make Walker an extremist, but a governor whose state books won’t balance because those who preceded him ignored those warnings and ultimately governed as if the ’60s would never end](http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/david-keene/146555-a-new-day-for-wisconsin-).”
During an address to NRA members at the organization’s annual meeting in May 2010, Keene said, 
.”
Keene presented Roy Innis, the controversial director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), with the John M. Ashbrook Award at the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference and said, 
.” The award is named after one of the founders of the ACU who served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 21 years as a Republican from Ohio. In his remarks, Innis warned of ” and said the candidates for the 2008 presidential election were .” Speaking on the influence of CPAC, Innis said, .”
In an August 3, 2009 op-ed for The Hill, Keene expressed his opposition to federal legislation to ban fetish videos that depicted women crushing small animals. He wrote, “I suspect that the problem, its solution and the language that eventually became part of the federal criminal code were brought to the congressman’s attention by one of the so-called animal rights organizations with a far grander agenda than saving the mice or spiders or whatever other small animals had been crushed by whoever stars in such bizarre videos.”
In June 2009, when FedEx and rival UPS were embroiled in a legislative dispute, ACU sent a letter to FedEx offering to go to bat for the company at the price of $1.39 per grassroots activist contacted ($2 to $3 million for the entire project). One of the services offered to FedEx was op-ed pieces written by Keene. In the letter to FedEx, ACU expressed support for FedEx’s attempt to kill a piece of legislation that would have allowed nearly 100,000 FedEx workers to unionize. After FedEx declined ACU’s offer, the organization switched sides and supported UPS’s position in the dispute. In a letter in support of UPS signed by Keene, he called FedEx’s allegations against UPS “a disinformation campaign...that should be stopped.” The letter was also signed by fellow NRA Board Member Grover Norquist. The reversal in ACU’s position was widely seen as representative of the “pay- to-play” nature of Washington politics.
In a June 1, 2009 op-ed for The Hillentitled “Injustice Against Whites,” Keene claimed that during the 2008 presidential election “three” New Black Panther Party “thugs, dressed in paramilitary garb, were caught on camera wielding nightsticks to intimidate white voters who they suspected might not be prepared to vote for their candidate.” In fact, the
referenced by Keene showed only two members of the New Black Panther Party, and they were not interacting with any voters. One of the men was holding a nightstick and was later removed by police. Police received no complaints from voters at the site.
In a May 5, 2009 op-ed for The Hill, Keene wrote, “President Obama and his advisers are determined to turn control of Chrysler Corp. over to the United Auto Workers in spite of the fact that concessions to the union are largely responsible for the automaker’s inability to make a profit.”
Keene tried to free up speaking time for Dutch politician Geert Wilders at CPAC in February 2009. Wilders has openly talked about his hatred of Islam, said that a contemporary Muhammad would “be hunted down as a terrorist,” and called the Muslim prophet “the devil.” Wilders also believes that the Koran should be banned in the Netherlands. Contemporaneous with the CPAC controversy, Wilders was barred from entering the United Kingdom because of his inflammatory comments about Islam. Anders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of a July 2011 terrorist attack in Norway that left 77 dead, cited Wilders as an inspiration in his manifesto.
On February 29, 2008, Keene registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as a lobbyist for the government of Bayelsa State, Nigeria. Between 2006 and 2007, the Bayelsa government paid Carmen Group—the lobbying firm that employed Keene—over $900,000. The contract stipulated that lobbyists from Carmen were to “gain support for Bayelsa and the Niger Delta from the U.S. government.” The primary focus of Nigeria’s economy is the trade of oil, which account’s for 90% of the country’s exports. A February 2007 report by National Geographic stated, “Oil fouls everything in southern Nigeria [the Niger Delta]. It spills from the pipelines, poisoning soil and water. It stains the hands of politicians and generals, who siphon off its profits … The cruelest twist is that half a century of oil extraction in the delta has failed to make the lives of the people better. Instead, they are poorer still, and hopeless … Where does all the oil money go? That question is asked in every village, town, and city in the Niger Delta. The blame spreads, moving from the oil companies to a bigger, more elusive, target: the Nigerian government … On paper, a mechanism does exist for distributing oil revenues somewhat fairly. The federal government retains roughly half and gives out the rest each month, on a sliding scale, to the 36 state governments. The core oil producers—Rivers, Delta, Bayelsa, and Akwa Ibom—receive the most.” The Nigerian government’s conduct towards oil profits has also been called, “the institutionalized looting of national wealth.” According to the Nigerian government, over 7,000 oil spills occurred in the region between 1970 and 2000 (although some analysts believe the true figure is ten times higher) resulting in an estimated spillage of 1.5 million tons of oil (50 times more than the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster). Williams Mkpa, an Ibeno, Nigeria community leader lamented, “Oil companies do not value our life; they want us to all die. In the past two years, we have experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can no longer sustain their families. It is not tolerable.” In a high profile incident in the 1990s, the Nigerian government executed a number of anti-oil activists that had protested against Shell’s incursion into their homeland, after convicting the men of murder in a sham trial.
Lobbying Activity | Repressive Regimes | The Environment
In 2007, Keene said, “We have people [speaking at CPAC] that think that any Muslim shouldn’t be allowed on a platform. And we provide the platform [
.”
Keene authored a November 20, 2006 op-ed for The Hill entitled “Iraq is Dems Tar-Baby.” The phrase “tar baby” is considered by some to have a negative racial connotation and its use by Mitt Romney in July 2006 received widespread media scrutiny.
In a September 18, 2006 op-ed for The Hill, Keene wrote that in response to controversial statements about Islam made by Pope Benedict, “Islamic spokesmen reacted quickly, asserting that theirs is a religion of peace, condemning the Pope and blaming him as their followers began a new round of torching Christian churches around the world and killing those who attend them.” Keene could not “fathom why a religion’s leaders claim to be peaceful while so often encouraging or at least condoning violence against all who dare to disagree with them. I know there are moderate Muslims out there, but I must say that they are difficult to find when Muslim extremists take to the airwaves or streets.”
Documents filed in compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act on January 17, 2006 indicate that Keene managed a lobbying contract between the government of Algeria and the consulting firm, Carmen Group, where he was employed. Keene was tasked with projecting “an up-to-date image of Algeria, her government and her role in regional and world affairs,” while promoting “Congressional, non-governmental organizational, public and media support for Algeria’s legitimate interests and policy goals.” The lobbying contract also required Keene to facilitate “official and unofficial visits to Algeria for elected officials.” The government of Algeria paid Carmen Group $25,000 per month plus additional expenses for each month of lobbying work. In December 2010, Keene wrote a column for The Hill taking the side of the Algerian-based Polisario Front in that group’s conflict with the government of Morocco. In response, a column written by Robert M. Holley, executive director of the Moroccan American Center for Policy, stated, “The Dec. 7 commentary, ‘Our friends in the desert’ by David Keene, distorts the history and current realities of the Western Sahara conflict. It is also important to know that, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, Mr. Keene and his consulting firm received tens of thousands of dollars in lobbying fees from Algeria, the Polisario Front’s ideological and financial supporter—a fact Mr. Keene fails to disclose. Mr. Keene seriously misrepresents the position of the United Nations on the Western Sahara conflict … As well, Mr. Keene egregiously mischaracterizes the position of the U.S. government in the Western Sahara conflict. The Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, and bipartisan majorities of the U.S. House and Senate, support a resolution of the conflict based on autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty. Furthermore, the author’s description of life in the Polisario-run refugee camps in Algeria is the writer’s fantasy. In the tightly controlled camps—where the refugees are denied the most basic freedoms—there is only one permitted political party, the Polisario Front. Its appointed ‘president’ for more than three decades hails from a dubious class of Cold War leaders including their continuing ally, Fidel Castro. Mr. Keene’s distortions dishonor the lives of the 11 Moroccan police officers savagely killed by violent, pro-Polisario militants who infiltrated what began as a peaceful social protest over economic issues near Laayoune [Algeria].” The Polisario refuge camps are not the only place that human rights violations are alleged against Algeria. According to a 2008 report by the U.S. Department of State, Algeria’s human rights problems include “failure to account for persons who disappeared in detention during the 1990s, reports of abuse and torture, official impunity, abuse of pretrial detention, poor prison conditions, limited judicial independence, and restrictions on freedom of speech, press, and assembly. There were also increased limitations on religious freedom and problems with security-based restrictions on movement, corruption and lack of government transparency, discrimination and violence against women, and restrictions on workers' rights.”
Lobbying Activity | Repressive Regimes |
In May 2005, Keene spoke at an ACU dinner celebrating and defending then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who was embroiled in a number of ethics scandals (DeLay has since been convicted of money laundering). NRA Board Member Cleta Mitchellserved as M.C. for the event. Attendees at the event included DeLay himself, then-House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R – MO), then-RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, NRA Board Members Grover Norquist and Governor Jim Gilmore (R – VA), and approximately 30 members of Congress. The NRA purchased a table at the dinner for $2,000. In an interview with NPR a day after the event, Keene announced that “conservatives will protect their own” and called ethics investigations against DeLay “an attack on the conservative agenda” and “each and every” one of the 800 attendees of the dinner.
Political Corruption | Republican Party (GOP) |
In a March 14, 2005 op-ed for The Hill, Keene claimed that former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan “facilitated a genocidal uprising in Rwanda.” Annan, who was the director of U.N. Peacekeeping Operations during the Rwanda genocide, has said, “I believed at that time that I was doing my best. But I realized after the genocide that there was more that I could and should have done to sound the alarm and rally support.”
Keene’s son, David Michael Keene, was charged with attempted first degree murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison for firing a gun at another vehicle during a 2002 road rage incident. At the time of the incident, Keene was working with his father at ACU as an online communications director. Between the ages of 8 and 13, David Michael Keene was institutionalized seven times for “severe emotional problems,” including “a continuing problem with impulse control.”