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

These days, lobbying by foreign powers is so accepted as “business as usual” that foreign money even ends up in campaign coffers, according to the book The Foreign Policy Auction : 44

In a nutshell, here’s how foreign money flows from a foreign government to US politicians: A foreign government signs a contract with a DC lobbying firm; the firm pays its lobbyists, at least partially, with that foreign money; then, lobbyists make campaign contributions or organize fundraisers with that money. In fact, I’ve found dozens of instances where foreign lobbyists made contributions to legislators on the exact same day they meet to discuss the needs of foreign governments. While this may look a lot like bribery to you and me, it’s, unfortunately, perfectly legal.

And, at this point, this practice is also mostly respectable. The possible taint one might expect for those who engage in it seems to be minimal or short-lived. As the author of The Foreign Policy Auction puts it: 45

There is no arch-villain here, no dark lord, no one to unmask at the end of the show. There are only politicians seeking reelection, lobbyists seeking more revenue, and foreign governments competing for influence over the most influential government the world has ever known.

For decades, there was a sort of “dark lord,” one of the best known lobbyists for “rogue” powers in particular, named Edward von Kloberg III (1942–2005). Words like “infamous” were constantly used to describe the flamboyant, cape-wearing von Kloberg, who had added the “von” for effect, deeming it more “distinguished.” What really distinguished von Kloberg was that his Washington firm represented a slew of dictators starting in the early 1980s, including Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceaușescu of Romania, Liberia’s Samuel K. Doe, and Mobutu Sese Seko of Congo, formerly Zaire. “Shame is for sissies” was one of von Kloberg’s mottos. He claimed to have rejected only one client: Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid. 46

These days, though, many A-list lobbying and legal firms take business from unsavory regimes and undisputed dictators. But instead of admitting that they are brazen, like von Kloberg did, they tend to cast their activities in a benevolent light. Their frequent argument, as you’ll see here and in later chapters, is that they are actually helping these regimes down the path to democracy. This rationalization emanates from the legal and lobbying firms, as well as the various public relations shops, including Burson-Marsteller and Weber Shandwick, that engage in “image management.” 47

The field abounds with similar claims, which may indeed be sincere, at least in some cases. As a member of the Washington Strategic Consulting Group recounts: “Our firm really said to leaders, ‘This is what you need to do.’ The whole idea was to encourage them to reform.” In our shadow-elite age, such claims are not easy to evaluate. Even a former ambassador to Angola has said that the PR firm his host country used held more sway than he did. 48

The Limits of Regulation

While lobbying is regulated, there is many a slip between cup and lip.

An agent who is registered with FARA is supposed to make detailed filings, not just of meetings with those who have influence, but of propaganda or public-relations work as well. A look at the Foreign Influence Tracker set up by the public-interest news outlet ProPublica and the Sunlight Foundation will show just how specific those filings can be. 49

And yet there is always a lag between the propagandizing and filing. Once reporters are able to expose the foreign influence, the damage is likely already done, even if filings are timely and complete. It’s unlikely that the public or policymaking community will take much notice retroactively. And it’s nearly impossible if the filings are not timely or thorough.

For instance, a filing appeared in March 2013 that confirmed a paid propaganda campaign waged by the Malaysian government. 50The goal was apparently to spread negative press through a range of mainstream American outlets against a pro-democracy figure, using ten opinion writers. But the filing came a bit late: the campaign dated back to 2008.

The foreign agent in this case, conservative pundit Joshua Trevino, maintained that he didn’t know there was any database or that he needed to file at all. 51That’s likely because until President Obama took office, the enforcement of FARA had been lax, to say the least, and the law less well known. The Justice Department long favored “voluntary compliance” 52and, in fact, very few have been successfully prosecuted for a FARA violation. 53

With that track record, it is no surprise that filings can be haphazard. One fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations spoke to an unnamed lobbyist for a foreign country in 2010, who told him this: “I was so careful to document every phone call, every meeting, and then I found that some other people, they don’t file at all. . . . Does anything happen to them? Not really.” 54

In part, that could be the result of massive loopholes. A big one involves the Lobbying Disclosure Act, which ostensibly monitors domestic lobbying and has far less stringent requirements than does FARA. If a lobbyist has multiple accounts and registers under the LDA, he then no longer needs to register as a foreign agent. Another loophole allows meetings to be held overseas; those don’t fall under FARA’s purview. 55And one loophole in particular is being exploited amid the rise of—shall we say purposely—ill-defined influence or “nonprofit” groups.

One reporter describes it this way: “[A]s long as the entity is formally a nongovernmental organization and isn’t funded by a government—a chamber of commerce, an advocacy group, or some other entity—the [FARA] law does not apply.” 56Her article cites the Brussels-based European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, suggesting that it is a front for the repressive (and now deposed) Ukrainian government. But because of the group’s amorphous definition and ties to Ukraine’s former leadership, two lobbying firms, the Podesta Group and Mercury/Clark & Weinstock, were reportedly able to represent it under the LDA. (One report said the lobbyists went “radio silent” after their client, Viktor Yanukovych, fled the country in February 2014.) 57

The Obama administration did beef up FARA enforcement: firms in 2011 reported a big upswing in the number of audits coming from the Justice Department, with one lawyer describing the “wave” as beginning around 2009. 58

The president may have known that enforcement was his only option, since his attempts to close loopholes during his brief tenure in the Senate were nonstarters. And some have argued that politicians have no appetite to really close these loopholes, because they are happy to accept campaign donations from the foreign (shadow) lobbying firmament. The list of politicians who’ve done just that now includes Obama himself. 59

Of course, foreign lobbying has been going on for a very long time. But John Newhouse assesses that the co-opting of diplomacy by private interests is not an occasional problem, but now rather “a broad and deepening pattern of corrupt and corruptible members of Congress making self-serving deals with lobbyists working for foreign entities.” 60

Others argue that the traditional mode of influence—meetings with lawmakers, say—has given way to the newer, more creative forms of lobbying that can evade even the stronger requirements of the FARA law. Ken Silverstein, journalist and longtime foreign lobbying watchdog, writes: 61

One Washington lobbyist told me, “Access lobbying is dead. Congress is gridlocked so meetings on the Hill are useless. Now it’s all about perception and molding public opinion. That’s why so many lobby firms have become integrated, and do so much work on the P.R. side.”