FOREIGN-AGENT LOBBYISTS AMID UPROARS, DUCK FOR COVER
By Elana Schor and Roxana Tiron
The Hill, DC
March 29 2006
Corruption at the United Nations. Blowback against Chinese oil moves.
Hysteria over the Dubai ports deal.
When members of Congress lash out at a foreign entity, its local
lobbyists are inevitably caught in the crossfire.
The domestic lobbying industry makes constant headlines for its huge
profits and brewing scandals, but the smaller and more secretive
world of foreign-agent lobbying has begun attracting more than its
share of attention.
As the challenges and unanswered questions facing foreign-agent
lobbyists continue to bleed into the news and influence international
affairs, lawmakers shaping the lobbying reform debate are finally
poised to take up the issue.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was passed in 1938 to levy
criminal penalties against Nazi propagandists exploiting the U.S.
political process before World War II. The law forces strict reporting
requirements on any individual paid by a foreign government or business
for lobbying, public relations and advocacy within the United States.
A growing number of foreign-government-owned businesses, such as
Dubai Ports World and the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corp.
(CNOOC), are finding it in their best interests to have American
lobbyists helping them gain a foothold here.
In 2005, 455 foreign-agent lobbyists had active registrations working
with 661 foreign entities, according to Justice Department statistics.
“It is ridiculous to think that major [state-controlled]
multinational corporations are not going to have to pay attention
to the U.S. political process, and they would come up short if they
didn’t,” said one lobbyist currently advising foreign governments.
Like many K Street insiders contacted for this article, the lobbyist
asked to remain anonymous to speak freely about the nature of
foreign-agent lobbying without attracting unnecessary attention.
For foreign-agent lobbyists who thrive on image maintenance, former
State Department and National Security Council staffer Robert Cabelly
serves as a cautionary tale. Cabelly’s lobbying and PR firm, C/R
International, has represented African nations struggling with the
remnants of oppressive regimes, such as Angola and Equatorial Guinea,
as well as Base Petroleum, a company linked to the late Nigerian
military dictator Sani Abacha.
But it was Cabelly’s State Department-sanctioned contract to lobby
for the Sudanese government, which the Bush administration has accused
of genocide in the Darfur region, that led Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) to
mount a one-man crusade against the lobbyist.
“Some things are inappropriate” in the world of foreign-agent lobbying,
Wolf said in an interview, “but others are more so, particularly if
it’s a former federal official. Doesn’t it shock people anymore?”
Wolf, as chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee with power
over the State Department’s purse strings, was uniquely positioned
to pressure Foggy Bottom to cut off its support for Cabelly. While a
spokesman for State initially protested that Cabelly “would provide a
perspective on United States concerns and policy that would be useful
in advancing the peace process and resolving the crisis in Darfur,”
his $530,000 contract was terminated last month.
Few governments looking for lobbyists to smooth over questionable
human-rights records have acted as publicly as Sudan.
Mark Edmond Clark, a former Council on Foreign Relations fellow, signed
an $18,000, six-month contract to lobby for Iran on the “mission of
international relations to the United Nations.” The contract ended
last year.
The brutal ruling junta of Burma dropped its last foreign-agent
lobbyists, the Republican PR firm DCI Group, in 2003. Neither Syria
nor North Korea has an active foreign-agent lobbying contract,
according to Justice Department records.
“I need to be able to go to sleep at night,” said Mark Tavlarides,
a Van Scoyoc & Associates lobbyist who represents the Pakistan Embassy.
“You lose your reputation once and that’s it. You represent a rogue
state and, even if you follow the law, it does have an impact on
your reputation.”
Another international furor over foreign lobbying occurred last year
in the Philippines, when political foes of embattled President Gloria
Arroyo pounced on her $75,000-per-month lobbying contract with Venable.
The Philippine Senate held Arroyo’s national-security adviser
in contempt when he refused to answer questions about the hiring
of lobbyists Jim Pitts and James Jatras, whose deal asks them to
“secure grants or congressional earmarks for support of the Charter
Change initiative” – an Arroyo-backed plan to replace the Philippine
government with a parliamentary system.
“You have to take the political culture of each country as you find
it,” said Jatras, who said he worked largely for general military
assistance to Philippines, not Charter Change. “Each country has
its own unique political culture and mode of political discourse. It
seems part of that in the Philippines is people making unsubstantiated
charges of the most exaggerated kind.”
The Arroyo government yanked Venable’s contract after it dominated
Philippines media, but Jatras and Pitts have since negotiated a more
flexible deal “generally promoting bilateral relations,” Jatras said.
His foreign-agent lobbying work for India on its pending civilian
nuclear agreement with the United States continues.
Rather than defending their own image in a foreign nation, lobbyists
representing suspicious or even rogue states largely find themselves
working to improve those governments’ reputations with Congress and
the White House.
“Their job is hard, but at the same time also fairly easy,” said
another lobbyist who previously worked with foreign agents. “They
defend the image of the country they represent.”
But countries like Syria or North Korea also face the challenge of
“finding quality lobbyists that are good at what they are doing and
willing to take their money,” this lobbyist said.
Ambassador Patrick Theros, the former top U.S. diplomat in Qatar and
a founding partner of Theros & Theros, last year worked as an adviser
for Ayad Allawi, then interim prime minister of Iraq.
“The hardest lesson I learned is convincing a client who does not
know the United States that the U.S. government is different from
any other big Western governments and does not speak with one voice,”
Theros said. “That’s almost impossible to sell. … As a government,
we are incomprehensible to the outside world.”
Often foreign agent lobbyists have to fight the powers of strong
grassroots movements. When the Armenian-American community urged
Congress to adopt human-rights legislation concerning the Armenian
genocide in Turkey, the Turkish government brought in the Livingston
Group and its top hired gun, former House Appropriations Committee
Chairman Bob Livingston (R-La.), to block the bill. Still, the House
International Relations Committee adopted the measure last year,
and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is considering it.
Another part of foreign agents’ challenge comes from perceptions that
are triggered because they have to register with the Department of
Justice’s criminal division.
“There is almost a negative connotation, like you are pulling something
and using undue influence in some way,” said a lawyer who advises
several foreign clients on legal and business matters.
For those not seasoned in the process, such as PR companies hired
to work on advertising campaigns, registering under FARA comes with
a stigma.
“You feel like, ‘Oh my God, we are not criminals,'” said a PR
specialist who, after the Sept. 11 attacks, worked on an ad campaign
for a strategic Middle Eastern ally.
One lobbyist working for a friendly Western government described the
FARA process as “a nightmare” and was reluctant to go through the
rigorous accounting.
Because the law’s reporting requirements are very strict – every means
of communications, every meeting has to be detailed – some lobbyists
actively seek exemptions or loopholes allowing them to register under
the Lobbying Disclosure Act, which asks for less broad disclosure.
Wolf said he plans to introduce amendments to the House’s lobbying
reform bill, expected to come to the floor before the April recess,
prohibiting former senior executive-branch officials from quickly
profiting off their inside knowledge with foreign-agent deals.
Five other pending bills aim to bring greater transparency and
disclosure to the foreign-agent system. Reps. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio)
and Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) have called for immediate online disclosure
of foreign lobbying contracts, while Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio)
wants to increase the foreign lobbying “revolving door” moratorium
to five years after leaving office and establish a foreign-agent
clearinghouse at the Federal Election Commission that would prevent
overseas cash from influencing U.S. elections.
Florida GOP Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Lincoln
Diaz-Balart have introduced a bill that would block former members
from lobbying on behalf of any nation designated a sponsor of terrorism
by the State Department.
Kenneth Gross, a lobbying and ethics lawyer at Skadden Arps, echoed
complaints from foreign agents that the criminal statute governing
their behavior has a chilling effect. FARA should be revamped as a
civil statute, similar to the Lobbying Disclosure Act, Gross said.
Van Scoyoc’s Tavlarides said foreign-agent lobbyists have nothing
to fear from FARA transparency: “Our firm represents the government
of Pakistan and we are proud to represent them. If you are doing the
right thing and are interacting with foreign governments, you should
not have to hide it.”
Those who violate the FARA regulations have to pay hefty fines and
risk up to five years in prison. The Justice Department also can
seek an injunction that would bar violators from acting as a foreign
agent for a certain amount of time, according to department spokesman
Bryan Sierra.