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Recent Articles, Blog Posts, and Stories Using FARA Data
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Foreign agents lobbied on issues raised in Wikileaks cables
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As the cache of internal State Department cables released by Julian Assange and Wikileaks.org amply demonstrates, U.S. government officials offer frank opinions about the leaders, policies and political developments in other countries. Another treasure trove of documents, disclosure of which is required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act, shows how foreign governments use Washington lobbyists to challenge those judgments and plead their case in Washington. The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group, thanks to a grant from ProPublica.org, has digitized and made searchable data from FARA filings. -
International influence: Agents of foreign clients report thousands of lobbying contacts, millions in fees
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In 2009, lobbying, public relations and other firms that represent some 328 clients —foreign governments, political parties and government-controlled entities including some for-profit corporations—reported receiving more than $60 million in fees—down by about $25 million from the total in the previous year, an analysis of disclosures required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) shows. -
Coups, nuclear deals and Gitmo detainees featured in 2009 FARA filings
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Denounced by their Latin American neighbors, the Obama administration and world opinion following the removal from power and immediate exile of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, the acting Honduran government turned to Washington lobbyists to launch a media and lobbying campaign on Sept. 19, 2009, to regain legitimacy in the United States. -
Washington Post cites Russian role in Kyrgyzstan unrest
The Washington Post reports that "Kremlin-friendly television stations and newspapers" and Russian economic sanctions played a key role in the toppling of Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
Though Bakiyev fled the country on April 7, he has refused to resign his post.
Kyrgyzstan provides a key air base to U.S. forces engaged in Afghanistan. Allegations of corruption in supplying the base by officials figured in the toppling of both the previous government and that of Bakiyev, according to the New York Times.
The effort to topple Bakiyev, the Post reported, "...was a sharp departure from Russia's traditional support for autocratic leaders in its neighborhood. It paid off quickly and dramatically, and it appears to have delivered the Kremlin a rare foreign policy victory."
On August 8, 2008, Russia invaded Georgia, and successfully created two new ethnic enclaves, the Republic of South Ossetia and the Republic of Abhkazia.
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Correction: Fees for Livingston Group corrected in FLIT
Due to a data entry error, the Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker contained duplicate entries for fees paid to the Livingston Group by some its clients. We have eliminated the duplicate records. Some of the totals we reported in the two main stories that accompanied the release of the database have changed:
- The Livingston Group's earnings from fees paid by its foreign clients has been changed to $3.1 million;
- The total money that various foreign entities reported spending in 2008 on lobbyists changes from $87 million to $85 million;
- Turkey's spending on lobbying stands corrected at $3.5 million.
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Scaled-down missile defense system comes after ramped-up lobbying effort
Lobbyists for the nation of Poland marked a win today as the country expressed relief at a scaled down US-sponsored missile shield, as the Associated Press reported, a turning point in negotiations between the countries in which Poland relied not just on diplomats, but on K Street lobbyists paid hundreds of thousands of dollars , too. The Obama administration last month agreed to dramatically scale down an Eastern European defense system that offended Russia and put a wary Poland on edge. The Bush plan would have used Poland as a potential launching point for missiles intercepting projectiles from Iran, but some viewed its ulterior target at Russia.
Talks between the US and Poland on a missile defense system took on an unexpected urgency when Russian tanks rolled in to Georgia in a territorial dispute last year. Polish lobbyists met 70 times with the Administration and 38 times with House of Representatives and Senate staff between June and November to negotiate an arrangement under which the United States would install a missile defense system in Poland, ostensibly to deter threats from Iran, according to Department of Justice records analyzed by the Sunlight Foundation and ProPublica and available at ForeignLobbying.org. Such diplomacy can be a zero-sum game, however: Russia claimed the system was aimed at it and declared that installation "could not go unpunished," meaning that striking a deal with one Eastern European country would deal a blow to relations with its larger neighbor. In May, funding for the system was stripped by House Democrats who did not view Iran as an imminent threat.
The negotiations played out against the backdrop of the US presidential campaign; while then-candidate Barack Obama criticized the defense system, the Polish foreign minister met with his opponent, Sen. John McCain, in September. Making as many as eight contacts in a day that month, Polish lobbyists communicated with key committees and members in the House and Senate and with then-deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO policy Dan Fata, who left government to work for international lobby shop the Cohen Group (and has since publicly advocated for the missile base), and Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried, a former ambassador to Poland.
With the reevaluation of the Eastern European defense systemwhich may be based off ships rather than mainland basesPoland can consider its $203,000 in lobbying fees a successful investment. Vice President Joe Biden travelled to Poland with a contingent of other former Soviet bloc countries, many of whose relationships with Russia remain icy.
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Poland's lobbyists were also active during the same time period addressing a House resolution calling on its government to make "immediate and just restitution of, or compensation for, property illegally confiscated during the last century by Nazi and Communist regimes." -
Scaled-down missile defense system comes after ramped-up lobbying effort
Lobbyists for the nation of Poland marked a win today as the country expressed relief at a scaled down US-sponsored missile shield, a turning point in negotiations between the countries in which Poland relied not just on diplomats, but on K Street lobbyists paid hundreds of thousands of dollars , too. The Obama administration last month agreed to dramatically scale down an Eastern European defense system that offended Russia and put a wary Poland on edge. The Bush plan would have used Poland as a potential launching point for missiles intercepting projectiles from Iran, but some viewed its ulterior target at Russia.
Talks between the US and Poland on a missile defense system took on an unexpected urgency when Russian tanks rolled in to Georgia in a territorial dispute last year. Polish lobbyists met 70 times with the Administration and 38 times with House of Representatives and Senate staff between June and November to negotiate an arrangement under which the United States would install a missile defense system in Poland, ostensibly to deter threats from Iran. Such diplomacy can be a zero-sum game, however: Russia claimed the system was aimed at it and declared that installation “could not go unpunished,” meaning that striking a deal with one Eastern European country would deal a blow to relations with its larger neighbor. In May, funding for the system was stripped by House Democrats who did not view Iran as an imminent threat.
The negotiations played out against the backdrop of the US presidential campaign; while then-candidate Barack Obama criticized the defense system, the Polish foreign minister met with his opponent, Sen. John McCain, in September. Making as many as eight contacts in a day that month, Polish lobbyists communicated with key committees and members in the House and Senate and with then-deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO policy Dan Fata, who left government to work for international lobby shop the Cohen Group (and has since publicly advocated for the missile base), and Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried, a former ambassador to Poland.
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Rep. Wexler heads to think tank funded by big Democratic donor
Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, is resigning from Congress and accepting a job at the Center for Middle East Peace & Economic Cooperation, a nonprofit with offices in Florida and Washington, D.C., that's funded by Slim-Fast founder S. Daniel Abraham.
The Center for Middle East Peace & Economic Cooperation appears to operate on a shoestring budget, relying on annual contributions of roughly a million dollars from Abraham and listing a payroll of four, two of whom reside in Israel, according to 2008 IRS filings. In 2007, the group listed four American staffers, each making $90,000 or less each, and two Israeli consultants, making up to $198,000 each.Wexler will work out of its office in downtown DC, the center told Sunlight.
Personal financial disclosure records show that Wexler accumulated tens of thousands of dollars in debt while in Congress--a study of filings from 2007 placed him in worse financial shape than all but 10 members of Congress, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis.
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Wexler's finances have slipped slowly since he's been in office. In 2008, his bank account held less than $15,000, and he reported credit card balances between $40,000 and $115,000 and college loans between $50,000 and $100,000. The Waxmans have three children. -
Putting the Best Face on a Coup d’Etat
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Corruption charges prompt Congo to lobby Congress
In the past few years a handful of private equity or hedge funds have garnered a reputation as "vulture funds," a term coined to describe companies that profit from the debt of extremely poor countries. The hedge funds buy defaulted debt for pennies on the dollar, then sue them later for the full amount owed in U.S. and European courts.
Both in 2008 and earlier this year, members of Congress introduced bills to protect these debtor nations from lawsuits. The legislation was introduced after heavy lobbying campaigns by countries like the Republic of the Congo, which has spent millions of dollars hiring D.C.-based heavyweight lobbying firms.
The hedge firms--like Kensington International Ltd. which fought a long drawn case with the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville)--claim that corrupt practices by rulers, and not the poverty of the countries, are the reason they are not able to repay their debts.
Kensington International, based in the Cayman Islands, is a subsidiary of Elliott Associates, a New York company. In the 1990s, Kensington bought up several debt packages worth $100 million from Congo, which led to a decade-long round of negotiations and legal battles spanning a few continents before the lawsuit was settled in 2007. But before that happened, Kensington International's sleuthing uncovered a series of hidden bank accounts, some belonging to the President's son, straw men and companies in tax-haven countries run by the head of the Congo's state-owned oil and gas company SNPC.
While the court case was still underway, the Office of President Denis SassouNguesso of the Republic of the Congo hired lobbyists, according to filings under the Foreign Agents Registration Act maintained by the Department of Justice. In 2006, the filings show, SNPC paid Trout Casheries LLC, its U.S. lobbyists, the sum of $700,000 on behalf of the Republic of the Congo. The filing was the first time that the lobbying issues specifically related to debt management were listed; Trout Casheries also disclosed that they represented the President of the Republic of Congo, Sassou-Nguesso, "to respond to allegations of misconduct directed by creditors."
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Corruption charges prompt Congo to lobby Congress
In the past few years a handful of private equity or hedge funds have garnered a reputation as “vulture funds,” a term coined to describe companies that profit from the debt of extremely poor countries. The hedge funds buy defaulted debt for pennies on the dollar, then sue them later for the full amount owed in U.S. and European courts.
Both in 2008 and earlier this year, members of Congress introduced bills to protect these debtor nations from lawsuits. The legislation was introduced after heavy lobbying campaigns by countries like the Republic of the Congo, which has spent millions of dollars hiring D.C.-based heavyweight lobbying firms.
The hedge firms–like Kensington International Ltd. which fought a long drawn case with the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville)–claim that corrupt practices by rulers, and not the poverty of the countries, are the reason they are not able to repay their debts.
Kensington International, based in the Cayman Islands, is a subsidiary of Elliott Associates, a New York company. In the 1990s, Kensington bought up several debt packages worth $100 million from Congo, which led to a decade-long round of negotiations and legal battles spanning a few continents before the lawsuit was settled in 2007. But before that happened, Kensington International’s sleuthing uncovered a series of hidden bank accounts, some belonging to the President’s son, straw men and companies in tax-haven countries run by the head of the Congo’s state-owned oil and gas company SNPC.
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Defense contractors join Turkish lobbying effort in pursuit of arms deals
The Defense Department's request last week for congressional approval of the sale of $8 billion worth of PAC-3 missiles to Turkey was the latest victory for a disparate group of interests including defense contractors, finance and energy corporations, trade groups, the Turkish government and a well-financed network of domestic advocacy nonprofits. Intersecting interests have led them to join forces and lobby on a number of issues, including the characterization of distant historical events.
Turkey and the domestic advocacy groups that promote the interests of Turkish-Americans did so to protect the Turkey's image, while U.S. companies sought to bolster their own bottom lines. The efforts appear to have been successful for all the parties.
The Turkish government has consistently lavished millions each year on well-connected Washington lobbying firms--including those employing former House leaders--which contacted offices of the lower chamber 1,468 times, according to an analysis of data from Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker of disclosures filed in 2008 by firms under the Foreign Agent Registration Actnearly twice that of the second-highest country, Libya.
Turkey's efforts have now been augmented by a domestic effort launched by a Turkish-American entrepreneur. Yalcin Ayasli founded Hittite Microwave in 1985 as a one-man company with a grant from the U.S. Air Force, and built the electronics company into a firm worth $1.2 billion, with half of its products sold overseas, according to a company presentation. The company had $180 million in revenue in 2008, according to SEC filings.
Since 2004, Hittite Microwave has received roughly $30 million in contracts directly from the government--mostly to sponsor research and development--and has also done business with Lockheed Martin and other prime contractors, many of whom use Hittite electronics in their jets and other equipment, sold to both the U.S. military and Turkey.
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Defense contractors join Turkish lobbying effort in pursuit of arms deals
The Defense Department’s request last week for congressional approval of the sale of $8 billion worth of PAC-3 missiles to Turkey was the latest victory for a disparate group of interests including defense contractors, finance and energy corporations, trade groups, the Turkish government and a well-financed network of domestic advocacy groups. Intersecting interests have led them to join forces and lobby on a number of issues, including the characterization of distant historical events.
Turkey and the domestic advocacy groups that promote the interests of Turkish-Americans did so to protect the Turkey’s image, while U.S. companies sought to bolster their own bottom lines. The efforts appear to have been successful for all the parties.
The Turkish government has consistently lavished millions each year on well-connected Washington lobbying firms–including those employing former House leaders–which contacted offices of the lower chamber 1,468 times, according to an analysis of data from Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker of disclosures filed in 2008 by firms under the Foreign Agent Registration Act—nearly twice that of the second-highest country, Libya.
Turkey’s efforts have now been augmented by a domestic effort launched by a Turkish-American entrepreneur. Yalcin Ayasli founded Hittite Microwave in 1985 as a one-man company with a grant from the U.S. Air Force, and built the electronics company into a firm worth $1.2 billion, with half of its products sold overseas, according to a company presentation. The company had $180 million in revenue in 2008, according to SEC filings.
Since 2004, Hittite Microwave has received roughly $30 million in contracts directly from the government—mostly to sponsor research and development—and has also done business with Lockheed Martin and other prime contractors, many of whom use Hittite electronics in their jets and other equipment, sold to both the U.S. military and Turkey.
In 2007, Ayasli transferred $30 million in stock to fund a new endeavor, the nonprofit Turkish Coalition of America. The organization is headquartered in a Washington suite that has also been listed as the address for the Turkish Coalition USA PAC, the lobbying firm of Lydia Borland (who has represented the Turkish government), and the law firm of Bruce Fein and Associates (Fein comprises half of the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund).
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Turkey's influence over lawmakers surfaces in Ohio hearing
Labeling the killing of 1.5 million
Armenians between 1915 and 1923, many at the hands of Ottoman
government, an act of genocide has been a controversial issue in
Turkey, among some historians, in the U.S. Congress, and now in the
unlikely venue of the Ohio Board of Elections, where recent hearings
indirectly considered the government of Turkeys connection, if any, to
Turkish advocacy groups in Washington.Backed by lawyers from the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund, Rep. Jean Schmidt,
R-Ohio, filed a false claims complaint against David Krikorian, who ran
against her in 2008 as an independent and garnered 18 percent of the
vote. Schmidts complaint stems from campaign literature in which
Krikorian claimed she has taken $30,000 in blood money from Turkish
sponsored political action committees to deny the slaughter of 1.5
million Armenian men, women and children by the Ottoman Turkish
government during World War I.Though Jean Schmidt doesnt sit on the subcommittee responsible for
the Armenian Genocide legislation, its clear that shes a favorite of
the Turkish community. With $18,450 in contributions from three
Turkish-focused PACs since 2007, the second-term House member has
received far more than even influential senior members, and nearly
twice as much as the second-highest recipient, Virginia Foxx, whose
son-in-law is Turkish. A list of fundraisers compiled by the Turkish
Coalition USA PAC shows that the group held several events for Schmidt,
raising thousands more. And four individuals who gave to Turkish PACs
also donated a combined $8,700 directly to Schmidts campaign.At issue before the Ohio Board of Elections is whether Krikorians
language holds upwhether it was accurate to describe three
Turkey-focused political action committees as Turkish sponsored. The
false claims complaint against Krikorian comes after the board censured
Schmidt for a reckless disregard for truth in her own campaign
literature.Lobbyists for the government of Turkey, including former congressmen Bob Livingston, made more than 2,260 contacts
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with officials in an unparalleled push to quash a resolution in
Congress that would deem the events genocide. But political action
committees favored by Turkish Americans have, on paper, no direct
connection with the state. -
Turkey’s influence over lawmakers surfaces in Ohio hearing
Labeling the killing of 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923, many at the hands of Ottoman government, an act of genocide has been a controversial issue in Turkey, among some historians, in the U.S. Congress, and now in the unlikely venue of the Ohio Board of Elections, where recent hearings indirectly considered the government of Turkey’s connection, if any, to Turkish advocacy groups in Washington.
Backed by lawyers from the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund, Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, filed a false claims complaint against David Krikorian, who ran against her in 2008 as an independent and garnered 18 percent of the vote. Schmidt’s complaint stems from campaign literature in which Krikorian claimed she “has taken $30,000 in blood money from Turkish sponsored political action committees to deny the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children by the Ottoman Turkish government during World War I.”
Though Jean Schmidt doesn’t sit on the subcommittee responsible for the Armenian Genocide legislation, it’s clear that she’s a favorite of the Turkish community. With $18,450 in contributions from three Turkish-focused PACs since 2007, the second-term House member has received far more than even influential senior members, and nearly twice as much as the second-highest recipient, Virginia Foxx, whose son-in-law is Turkish. A list of fundraisers compiled by the Turkish Coalition USA PAC shows that the group held several events for Schmidt, raising thousands more. And four individuals who gave to Turkish PACs also donated a combined $8,700 directly to Schmidt’s campaign.
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After massive US lobbying press, Turkey open to direct talks with Armenia
A diplomatic breakthrough in the longstanding feud between Turkey and Armenia puts a renewed focus on the United States' role in that dispute last year. Turkey mounted the largest foreign lobbying effort of 2008 in order to deter the U.S. Congress from declaring events in that part of the world 85 years prior as a genocide. The lobbying onslaught appeared to have worked, we've written on our Foreign Lobbyist Influence Tracker, but under an agreement floated this week, the Wall Street Journal reports today, the countries have taken steps to open relations while agreeing to mount a joint historical investigation into the deaths, which numbered as high as 1.5 million.
As a senator, Barack Obama supported terming the Turks' ancestors' actions genocide, but in an April visit to Turkey the president steered clear of the topic.
Lobbyists for Turkey made 2,268 contacts with Congressional offices in a short period, we've reported, more than any other country. Armenia has a presence on Capitol Hill as well, and there was pushback from that camp.
Now, direct talks between the two countries seem to be making progress, and Turkey may open its border, closed to Armenia since 1993, the Journal reports. Turkey's worldwide image is of great concern to it as it pursues membership in the European Union.
See all contacts between lobbyists for Turkey and US officials and media, as compiled by the Sunlight Foundation and ProPublica, here and here.
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After massive US lobbying press, Turkey open to direct talks with Armenia
A diplomatic breakthrough in the longstanding feud between Turkey and Armenia puts a renewed focus on the United States’ role in that dispute last year. Turkey mounted the largest foreign lobbying effort of 2008 in order to deter the U.S. Congress from declaring events in that part of the world 85 years prior as a genocide. The lobbying onslaught appeared to have worked, we’ve written on our Foreign Lobbyist Influence Tracker, but under an agreement floated this week, the Wall Street Journal reports today, the countries have taken steps to open relations while agreeing to mount a joint historical investigation into the deaths, which numbered as high as 1.5 million.
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Informant in tiny nation toppled decades of banking secrecy
Swiss mega-bank UBS has dominated recent headlines with its reluctant release of a subset of the list of Americans using the accounts, long shrouded in secrecy, to avoid paying taxes to the US.
But it was an obscure microstate that set off the banking-secrecy firestorm last year when other nations obtained evidence that hundreds of its citizens were sidestepping billions of dollars in taxes by hiding money in secret accounts there.
The probe into anonymous bank accounts began in the tiny German-speaking nation of Liechtenstein, when an employee of the LGT Group bank, which is owned by the country's royal family, sold a compact disc containing information on foreign account holders to authorities in Germany, and then Britain and the US.
Heinrich Kieber, the IT staffer tasked with digitizing paper records who got rich by turning over the documents implicating wealthy tax-avoiders, is now wanted by Interpol, but German authorities have reportedly given a new identity to the balding 44-year old who now has the means to live comfortably, yet is despised by untold numbers of powerful men across the globe.
Outrage at the massive scale of the tax avoidance he saw during the course of his employment led him to leak the data, Kieber claimed in a video testimony shown in a July 2008 hearing of a Senate investigations subcommittee. The subcommittee, chaired by Carl Levin (D-Mich.), released a report targeting LGT and the Swiss bank UBS, and estimated that $100 billion in tax revenue was lost to tax havens each year.
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Informant in tiny nation toppled decades of banking secrecy
Swiss mega-bank UBS has dominated recent headlines with its reluctant release of a subset of the list of Americans using the accounts, long shrouded in secrecy, to avoid paying taxes to the US.
But it was an obscure microstate that set off the banking-secrecy firestorm last year when other nations obtained evidence that hundreds of its citizens were sidestepping billions of dollars in taxes by hiding money in secret accounts there.
The probe into anonymous bank accounts began in the tiny German-speaking nation of Liechtenstein, when an employee of the LGT Group bank, which is owned by the country’s royal family, sold a compact disc containing information on foreign account holders to authorities in Germany, and then Britain and the US.
Heinrich Kieber, the IT staffer tasked with digitizing paper records who got rich by turning over the documents implicating wealthy tax-avoiders, is now wanted by Interpol, but German authorities have reportedly given a new identity to the balding 44-year old who now has the means to live comfortably, yet is despised by untold numbers of powerful men across the globe.
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"Man without a country" peddles international influence through tangled ties
None of the former officials who have signed up to lobby the U.S. government for foreign interests--a list that includes presidential nominees (Bob Dole) and congressional leaders (Richard Gephardt, Dick Armey)--has a resume as offbeat as that of Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli spy who later tried to implicate the opponent of the president of Zimbabwe in an assassination attempt and now considers himself a "man without a country." He also had one of the richest contracts to lobby for a foreign client--though he apparently had no contacts with U.S. government officials whatsoever.
According to data in the Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker, Paul Calder LeRoux, a 35-year-old citizen of Australia and South Africa, hired the spy-turned-political consultant who now operates out of Canada and paid him more than $6.5 million in 2007 and 2008. Dickens and Madson Canada, the firm that employs Ben-Menashe, disclosed that LeRoux hired them to facilitate an overseas real estate deal for vast swaths of farmland in Zimbabwe.
As is often the case with those who hire lobbyists, LeRoux was essentially paying for access--in this case to the controversial president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, whose government seized white-owned farms, a practice that has continued even after Mugabe was forced to share power with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai following a disputed election in 2008.
"I happen to know people," Ben-Menashe said.
It's not unusual for lobbyists to make that claim, but few backroom deals in Washington can compare to the intrigues of the former spy.
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“Man without a country” peddles international influence through tangled ties
Perhaps the most interesting character to turn up in records of agents lobbying on behalf of foreign countries and organizations is not a government official, nor can he even be linked to a single country. In fact, it’s not entirely clear why a former Israeli spy who once tried to implicate the president of Zimbabwe’s opposition in an assassination attempt and who is registered as a foreign agent was paid by a South African expatriate at all.
At its simplest, 35-year old Paul Calder LeRoux, a citizen of Australia and South Africa, hired the spy-turned-political consultant, now operating out of Canada, to facilitate a run-of-the-mill real estate deal, in this case for vast swaths of farmland in Zimbabwe. Like anyone else employing a lobbyist, he was essentially paying for the hired gun’s connections–in this case to president Robert Mugabe.
“I happen to know people,” the agent, Ari Ben-Menashe, told Sunlight of the way his unusually storied life has translated into political chops.
While his career has been a far cry from that of the typical Washington lobbyist, his knack for public relations stunts and spinning of facts–or outright fabrication–have served him in that field.
In Zimbabwe’s 2002 presidential election Mugabe defeated his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, by the narrowest of margins in what was widely decried as a Mugabe-rigged election. Tsvangirai spoke with Ben-Menashe about a plan to “eliminate” Mugabe. Ben-Menashe turned over a videotape of the conversation to Mugabe’s administration, and Tsvangirai was charged with treason.
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Tax Havens Build Lobbying Capacity in D.C.
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Raising Their Ugland House: Cayman Islands Lobbies to Keep Haven Safe
When President Barack Obama promised in May to raise an additional $210 billion in taxes a year by closing corporate loopholes and cracking down on individual tax cheats, he pointed to an address in the Cayman Islands listed by 12,000 corporations as the kind of abuse his proposals would shut down. "Either this is the largest building in the world or the largest tax scam in the world," the President said.
The line, recycled from his stump speech, was one that the Caribbean jurisdiction had responded to many times before. They have defended Ugland House, the building Obama referred to, and argued that the Cayman Islands are well regulated and transparent, to presidential candidates, executive branch officials, members of Congress and their staffs. In a revenue starved Washington, they're not the only tax haven lobbying.
[caption id="attachment_1522" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Ugland House"]
[/caption]Disclosures filed in 2008 show that six governments--Aruba, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Isle of Man, Liechtenstein and the States of Jersey--and the Bank of the Netherlands Antilles employed U.S. lobbyists, paying a total of $2.3 million in fees. Those lobbyists had at least 222 contacts with members of Congress, their staff and executive branch officials in which they discussed tax laws, legislation aimed at tax havens like the Stop Tax Haven Abuse bill, or efforts to negotiate tax exchange information agreements with the United States and other countries, a review of data in Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker (online at www.foreignlobbying.org) shows.
Signing or even committing to sign such agreements earns tax havens a stamp of approval from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, an international body of developed countries that promotes policies that will spur development elsewhere. In 1998, the OECD launched an initiative aimed at shutting down tax havens; by 2001, the effort had fallen apart, and the body turned instead to encouraging havens to agree to exchange information on their offshore clients with foreign governments on request.
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Raising Their Ugland House: Cayman Islands Lobbies to Keep Haven Safe
When President Barack Obama promised in May to raise an additional $210 billion in taxes a year by closing corporate loopholes and cracking down on individual tax cheats, he pointed to an address in the Cayman Islands listed by 12,000 corporations as the kind of abuse his proposals would shut down. “Either this is the largest building in the world or the largest tax scam in the world,” the President said.
The line, recycled from his stump speech, was one that the Caribbean jurisdiction had responded to many times before. They have defended Ugland House, the building Obama referred to, and argued that the Cayman Islands are well regulated and transparent, to presidential candidates, executive branch officials, members of Congress and their staffs. In a revenue starved Washington, they’re not the only tax haven lobbying.
Disclosures filed in 2008 show that six governments–Aruba, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Isle of Man, Liechtenstein and the States of Jersey–and the Bank of the Netherlands Antilles employed U.S. lobbyists, paying a total of $2.3 million in fees. Those lobbyists had at least 222 contacts with members of Congress, their staff and executive branch officials in which they discussed tax laws, legislation aimed at tax havens like the Stop Tax Haven Abuse bill, or efforts to negotiate tax exchange information agreements with the United States and other countries.
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One Foreign Actor We Didn’t Expect To Discover
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One Foreign Agent We Never Expected to Find
Typical attire: sandals and maroon-saffron robe. Typical day: wake at 3:30 a.m., prayer and meditation. Typical message: peace, nonviolence and independence for his spiritual homeland, Tibet.
If you guessed the Dalai Lama, you’re right. But did you know he has a lobbyist, too?
We never imagined Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader would show up in our new Foreign Lobbyist Influence Tracker. But there he is amid details about the Office of Tibet, which handles his affairs in the U.S.
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Opening the Window on Foreign Lobbying
In 2008, Bermuda’s influential reinsurance industry needed some help. Successive seasons of monster hurricanes in the United States, where much of its client base is, had cost these insurers of insurance companies $22 billion in losses. Eager to avoid a repeat — and unable to change the weather — the companies and Bermuda’s government turned to something they could influence: The U.S. Congress.
At the behest of his government’s lobbyist, Premier Ewart Brown of Bermuda met in June with key congressmen, among them the powerful House Ways and Means chairman, Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and two Democrats from states in hurricane alley, G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina and Bennie Thompson of Mississippi.
The sessions, Brown boasted later in Bermuda’s Royal Gazette, were part of a “very successful trip” that included “meetings with people who were not even on the schedule.”
In fact, the success was almost immediate.
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Adding it up: The Top Players in Foreign Agent Lobbying
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Adding it up: The Top Players in Foreign Agent Lobbying
It isn’t just U.S. companies or groups that push for their causes on Capitol Hill. Thousands of times each year, lobbyists for foreign governments and other overseas organizations reach out to members of Congress and other U.S. leaders to make their case on issues important to them.
But counting up those thousands of contacts hasn’t been easy. Records detailing what foreign entities are lobbying, who they’re contacting and why are filed on paper forms, sometimes in handwriting that’s little more than a scrawl. After prodding from open-government groups, the Department of Justice put scanned copies of the forms on its Web site in 2007, but in a fashion that’s barely an advance over the old-fashioned card catalog.
Now, the Sunlight Foundation and ProPublica have taken more than a year’s worth of data filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, and put it in a digital format that can be easily searched and analyzed to discover all the players in the foreign lobbying game.
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Opening the Window on Foreign Lobbying
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Adding it up: The Top Players in Foreign Agent Lobbying
It isnt just U.S. companies or groups that push for their causes on
Capitol Hill. Thousands of times each year, lobbyists for foreign
governments and other overseas organizations reach out to members of
Congress and other U.S. leaders to make their case on issues important
to them.But counting up those thousands of contacts hasnt been easy.
Records detailing what foreign entities are lobbying, who theyre
contacting and why are filed on paper forms, sometimes in handwriting
thats little more than a scrawl. After prodding from open-government
groups, the Department of Justice put scanned copies of the forms on
its Web site in 2007, but in a fashion thats barely an advance over
the old-fashioned card catalog.Now, the Sunlight Foundation and ProPublica have taken more than a
years worth of data filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act,
or FARA, and put it in a digital format that can be easily searched and
analyzed to discover all the players in the foreign lobbying game.Under FARA, all lobbyists who represent foreign governments,
political parties and government-controlled entities in a political or
quasi-political capacity must file disclosures. The forms list
activities, fees received, political contacts and any campaign
contributions.Data for this project is based on filings in calendar 2008. The
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reports cover lobbying activity that year and in late 2007, and provide
an extensive look into how foreign countries advanced their interests
in Washington, D.C., during the period. -
FARAdb Reveals Who Lobbyists Meet to Influence Congress
In 2005, Azerbaijan, an oil-rich country in the Caucuses that regained its independence when the Soviet Union collapsed, hired the Livingston Group, a well-connected Washington firm, to lobby on various issues ranging from human rights to trade and procuring funding. Over the last three years, representatives of the country have lobbied on the re-authorization of Export-Import Bank financing and security concerns in the region, meeting with several members of Congress along the way to push their agenda.
With influential lobbyists such as Bob Livingston heading their team, Azerbaijan's government had access to some of the most powerful people in Washington. For instance, at a meeting with Vice President Richard Cheney, Livingston petitioned to add an attach from the Department of Commerce to the U.S. embassy in Azerbaijan. They have also enlisted Livingston's aid in organizing the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce, working with the United States on building an oil pipeline, and getting oil companies including BP to invest in the region.And they've paid well for the service: In the past two years alone the country has spent more than $680,000 in fees and expenses to the Livingston Group.
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Getting to that data, however, is a time consuming, difficult process. The Foreign Agent Registration Information System, maintained by the Department of Justice, has an online database that provides users with access, through a balky search engine, to filings by foreign agents in a pdf format. Lobbyists for foreign entities"including foreign governments and government-controlled entities"must, under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), disclose their political activities, such as their meetings with U.S. government officials, the matters they discuss with them, and their campaign contributions to political candidates. -
Contract but no Contacts: McCain Campaign Official's Firm Collects Millions from Saudis but no Meetings with Members of Congress
In the five years prior to joining Arizona Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, Thomas Loeffler's lobbying firm contacted U.S. government officials, including members of Congress, staff and executive branch officials, an average of 58 times during every six month reporting period on behalf of the government of Saudi Arabia. In the year that Loeffler has served on McCain's campaign, employees at the firm reported only one contact on behalf of the Saudis, though it continued to receive fees from the oil kingdom some $3.5 million in all, according to the federal disclosure documents.
The forms, required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act, are filed with the Department of Justice every six months. The most recent disclosure states that the firm received $990,000 in lobbing fees and another $3,000 in expenses from the Saudi government to lobby on trade issues from May to November 2007, but does not cite any in-person meetings, phone conversations or e-mails with any executive branch official, member of Congress or staff. According to the May 2007 filing there was only one teleconference on March 26, two weeks after Loeffler joined McCain's campaign. FARA requires lobbyists of foreign governments to disclose all such contacts in the biannual filings with the Department of Justice.
According to the November 2007, disclosure forms signed by Tom Loeffler, the firm "provided services related to interaction between foreign principal and Members of Congress, congressional staff, officials in the Executive Branch and the World Trade Organization." Although it is possible that there were no reportable contacts during the time, the forms do not explicitly say so.
By contrast, disclosure forms filed in 2006 by the Loeffler Group in May and November detail meetings with members of Congress, including one with McCain on May 17, 2006. The filings also show that in 2006, Tom Loeffler had facilitated meetings between then Saudi Ambassador Price Turki Al-Faisal and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., to discuss "U.S.-Saudi relations." The November 2006, disclosure shows that meetings were convened between Tom Loeffler and Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, in June.
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The Loeffler Group has received close to $15 million since 2003 when they began to lobby for the Saudi government. In 2006, the year after Saudi Arabia entered the WTO group of countries, the Loeffler Group received more than $7million from the Saudis in lobbying fees, FARA documents show.The firm declined to comment on any of their lobbying disclosure filings. -
FARA records may go online
...at least that's what FARA employees told me today.
I was at the FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) offices at the Department of Justice this afternoon browsing around to find out more about a couple of
organizations
I came across in
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Filings under the Foreign Agent Registration Act provide far more detail on how lobbyists interact with government officials than those required by the Lobbying Disclosure Act; they contain information on efforts by foreign governments and organizations to influence U.S. policy on trade, taxation, foreign aid, appropriations, human rights and national security.
Since May 2007 the Justice Department has maintained a Web site that posts image files [pdf] of FARA disclosures online, but none of that information is available in a digitized format. Thus, it is impossible, for example, to see how many times the office of an individual member of Congress has been contacted. With the Foreign Lobbyist Influence Tracker, you can now find out with ease by selecting any member’s name from the pull-down list.
For more detailed information on FARA filings view our methodology.
