Janine Wedel - Unaccountable - How Elite Power Brokers Corrupt Our Finances, Freedom, and Security

Shadow lobbying knows no particular ideology or political party. Both the American liberal Howard Dean and the conservative Rudy Giuliani were paid to speak on behalf of an Iranian exile group engaged in an all-out effort to be taken off the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations. 32These and other politicians have endorsed the exile group by speaking at its events for handsome fees—an activity that smacks of shadow lobbying. 33

THE FOREIGN CONNECTION: “SHAME IS FOR SISSIES”

Some of the most sophisticated—some might say shameless—shadow lobbying in the United States is in the service of foreign governments. Lobbying on behalf of foreign governments, a kind of paid privatization of diplomacy, leaves little room for accountability. Yet today it is a huge business enlisting individuals of high renown. 34

Foreign governments, of course, have sought to press their interests throughout American history. And some countries still do advocate through their embassies in the United States; that is, if they still have a powerful, well-staffed outpost that understands Washington. But “many, if not most” do not, according to John Newhouse of the think tank World Security Institute. Now countries of every variety—established, “emerging,” and perhaps especially “rogue” regimes and dictators—routinely seek out those in the know who have privatized the channels of diplomacy. These players take the experience they gleaned through public service, join or create a firm, and then offer their privileged knowledge to foreign countries that want to trade cash for access. Here’s Newhouse, writing in 2009 for Foreign Affairs : 35

. . . the U.S. government has become so complex that only insiders, such as former members of Congress or congressional staff members turned lobbyists, can navigate its confusing structure. The most well-connected individuals are likely to join one of the major hybrid law and lobbying firms, such as Patton Boggs, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, or BGR Group. The subculture of public relations and law firms that do this kind of work reflects a steady decline and privatization of diplomacy—with an increasing impact on how the United States conducts its own foreign policy.

A partner “who focuses on international clients” in the firm Qorvis, about which we will hear more later, reported that foreign countries are relying more and more on PR, as opposed to traditional lobbying. He said that “People still see the value in traditional lobbying, but its [ sic ] not always the first stop now when you come to Washington, when it used to always be the first stop.” 36

Shadow lobbyists not only seek to sway policymakers; opinionmakers and the public are also key targets. This shadow lobbying can have a corrupting effect on foreign policy.

On paper, at least, lobbying on behalf of foreign powers would appear to be a strictly regulated affair. The Foreign Agents Registration Act, passed in 1938, was initially aimed at preventing Nazi agents from spreading propaganda. The Supreme Court described FARA this way five years later: “the general purpose of the legislation was to identify agents of foreign principals who might engage in subversive acts or in spreading foreign propaganda, and to require them to make public record of the nature of their employment.” 37

Lobbyists on behalf of foreign countries are required to register with the U.S. Department of Justice under FARA (excepting those who fall through several loopholes that I will describe shortly). Many, if not most, lobbyists working to promote foreign-country interests in the United States do, in fact, register; but they report their activities in ways that obscure their nature or full extent.

Even when the firms or organizations are registered and the actions disclosed, the public is often still largely uninformed about the full extent of their activities, especially as they become increasingly adept at manipulating Internet and social-media venues for propaganda purposes. Here are two brief examples of the unaccountability of shadow lobbying and its sometime role in suppressing the public interest.

• Turkey provides the first. Over the years, the country has amassed bipartisan lobbying power to fight a formal acknowledgement by the U.S. government of the early-twentieth-century Armenian genocide. In Turkey’s corner (among other firms): International Advisors, Inc., founded by a prominent neoconservative and deputy undersecretary of defense for policy under President George W. Bush, Douglas Feith, with fellow top neocon Richard Perle serving as “adviser”; former Republican congressman Bob Livingston of the Livingston Group; and DLA Piper, one-time home of former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, who once supported the Armenian genocide resolution in Congress but later found the issue more complex, apparently, after his firm signed a reported $100,000-per-month contract with Turkey. 38Among those at DLA Piper on the Turkey account were two top fundraisers for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. 39

Given Turkey’s lobbying ammunition and the country’s geopolitical importance, the U.S. recognition of genocide in Armenia has not moved forward. As U.S. senators, Clinton and Barack Obama both backed the genocide resolution, but the legislation has since gone nowhere. President Obama broke a promise to Armenian-Americans to publicly deem as genocide Turkey’s actions nearly a century ago. In 2012, then–Secretary of State Clinton, the assumed front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, described the genocide recognition as “opening a door that is a very dangerous one to go through.” 40

• The use of informal envoys is another illustration. As Egypt began exploding in 2011, the Obama administration chose a special envoy who wasn’t employed by the State Department to deliver a personal message to the embattled President Hosni Mubarak: former ambassador-turned-lawyer/lobbyist Frank Wisner. Wisner, of the firm Patton Boggs, returned from Egypt with such a pro-Mubarak statement that the Obama administration had to immediately distance itself from its appointed informal envoy. 41

Patton Boggs strongly denied that it or Wisner had any financial interest in propping up the Mubarak government and said that it had performed work in Egypt had been finished for years. But, however urgent such privatization of diplomatic expertise might seem in a given case, should it not give us pause as a practice? The State Department spokesman remarked: “We’re aware of his employer. . . . And we felt that he was uniquely positioned to have the kind of conversation that we felt needed to be done in Egypt” [emphasis added]. Is it any surprise that Wisner went “off-script,” or that Wisner’s interests were questioned because he is a lobbyist? 42

As for those who were actively lobbying on behalf of Mubarak’s government in the lead-up to the unrest, they included three top players: K-Street legend Tony Podesta, former congressman Toby Moffett, and, once again, Bob Livingston. According to the New York Times , they had a “joint, multimillion-dollar contract with Egypt. [They] met with dozens of lawmakers and helped stall a Senate bill [in 2010] that called on Egypt to curtail human rights abuses.” 43

These are but a few examples of a practice that in the past ranged from the simply rare to the inconceivable or even treasonous. In a crisis situation like that of Egypt, it’s understandable that an administration might look to the players they know and trust, private or public. (And one could argue that at least Wisner had been a public servant, unlike Dan Jester, the banker friend Hank Paulson turned to when suddenly forced to bail out the financial system.) Be that as it may, and wherever one’s sympathies (and the facts) lie with regard to Armenia/Turkey or Egypt, there is no question that the manner of influencing is beyond accountability.