The questions could have been awkward for Clinton both politically and substantively, since she will have to manage relationships both with the Pakistanis and their cross-border rivals in India.
Still, the details of the Pakistan contract provide a rare and revealing look at the techniques Penn’s firm promised a foreign government to use to legally influence American public opinion and official policy.
According to the terms of a contract on file with the Department of Justice’s Foreign Agent Registration Office, Burson-Marsteller planned to interview “100 American political journalists and business elites in Washington, DC and New York, as well as elites in the United Kingdom, the European Union and Pakistani expatriates living in the United States. The contract made clear that Mark Penn’s market research consultancy Penn, Schoen, Berland & Associates would also contribute to the project.
