Mueller puts spotlight on foreign lobbying
The cottage industry of foreign lobbying is taking center stage as special counsel Robert Mueller investigates the activities of people in President Trump’s orbit.
Foreign advocacy work in Washington is common, lucrative and occasionally controversial, but has rarely received the front-page scrutiny it’s attracting now.
That’s mostly because of Paul Manafort and Richard Gates, two high-level figures from the Trump campaign who have been indicted as part of Mueller’s investigation. The charges against the two men, including allegations of money laundering, stem from work they did years ago to benefit a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine.
The lobbying work was not disclosed to the Department of Justice (DOJ), as is required under the law, according to the indictment. Manafort retroactively registered that work this year.
“Manafort’s not in trouble for working for a bad guy; he’s in trouble for working for a bad guy and then not disclosing that he worked for a bad guy,” said a lobbyist and foreign agent at a large Washington firm. “That’s the tough thing for DOJ: How do you go find something that you can’t see?”
The Hill spoke with a half-dozen foreign agents for this story. Most of them requested anonymity to speak freely about their thinking and about foreign advocacy work in general.
Working as a foreign agent has long been a profitable niche. While there are smaller-dollar contracts, foreign entities will sometimes pay firms $100,000 or more per month for representation in Washington. Domestic clients typically pay much less.
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/360391-mueller-puts-spotlight-on-foreign-lobbying