The McCain campaign held a conference call with reporters this afternoon to defend John McCain's record with the "Keating Five" scandal.

Speaking on behalf of McCain's record was John Dowd, a partner with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, who represented McCain during the Senate Ethics Committee investigation.

John and Cindy McCain "produced all documents requested ... gave sworn testimony ... and testified at the hearing," said Dowd. "He was the only Republican in that hearing, so it had some political overtones, given that a number of Democrats were in deep trouble."

The Ethics Committee "only found that it was 'poor judgment' [on McCain's part] for him to intervene with regulators," said Dowd.

Dowd called the Obama campaign's mentioning of the decades-old scandal as a "classic political smear job," considering McCain was absolved "exonerate by the committee."

Saying that McCain has been completely honest about his relationship with Keating, Dowd said, "We've seen the opposite with Barack Obama and William Ayers. Clearly their relationship is much deeper than [Obama] let on."