Roles Collide: Adviser To Clinton Campaign Loses Job for His Firm

EUGENE, Ore., April 5 -- The Colombian government fired the public relations firm run by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief strategist on Saturday after he tried to distance himself from a meeting he held with the country's ambassador to the United States.

Mark Penn has walked a tricky tightrope throughout the presidential campaign, serving both as chief executive of Burson-Marsteller and as a top Clinton aide. The two roles collided last week when Penn met with Colombian officials to discuss a pending trade agreement that Colombia desires and the New York Democrat opposes.

After the meeting was made public, Penn, already a controversial figure inside the Clinton campaign, came under attack from labor unions, with some officials calling for the candidate to fire him. Both Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) have said they are against the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

Penn said in a statement Friday that his sitting down with the Colombians was an "error in judgment." Colombia's U.S. embassy responded Saturday that the Bogota government "considers this a lack of respect to Colombians, and finds this response unacceptable."

The embassy said Colombia is canceling its $300,000 contract with Burson-Marsteller, although Bogota will continue to seek passage of the trade deal. Penn did not have further comment.

Mo Elleithee, a Clinton spokesman, said Penn had been acting "totally independent from the campaign" when he met with the Colombian ambassador, and was not representing the senator in any way at the time. Clinton "remains steadfast in her opposition" to the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, Elleithee said.

Trade has proved a divisive issue in the Democratic primary campaign and has helped drive the debate in Wisconsin, Ohio and now Pennsylvania. Clinton, whose husband put the North American Free Trade Agreement into place when he was president, criticized Obama several weeks ago after his top economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, met with Canadian officials and reportedly offered private assurances that Obama would not be as tough on trade as he promised on the campaign trail.

Penn, a longtime Clinton pollster and consultant, did not take a leave of absence from his firm when he took the top job at her campaign. He has repeatedly said that he would delegate most corporate work to others.