To most, Jamal Khashoggi was just a Washington Post journalist who was murdered in the Saudi Consulate in Turkey. To me and my colleagues, he was the founder and visionary behind the organization we work for: Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN). He was a dissident and human rights activist who inspired people across the globe to speak out against authoritarian governments in the Middle East and elsewhere. He was also a mentor who provided invaluable support to Arab political leaders in exile. He was a prolific writer, a friend, and a dear colleague to so many.
Like Vanguard Africa, DAWN works to shine a spotlight on issues such as the United States’ support for dictatorships in the Middle East and across the African continent. We challenge the relationships between the US and these governments because we recognize that so many of them rely on political, economic, and military support from the US to commit their abuses.
When the US intelligence community declassified a report about Khashoggi’s murder earlier this year, there was no ambiguity that the highest levels of the Saudi government had orchestrated his slaying. The declassified report named members of the Saudi hit team and found the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), personally responsible for the murder. Under enormous pressure from US Congress, the Biden Administration ultimately announced the Khashoggi Ban, a new visa restriction policy for foreign officials who engage in translational repression. The administration, however, failed to apply these sanctions to MBS; and prior to that, the Trump Administration went so far as to block Congressional efforts to cease arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Even after the murder of Khashoggi, an American resident, it was business as usual.
Why is this? Why does the Saudi government enjoy impunity and preferential treatment from lawmakers on Capitol Hill in spite of its long-established and egregious human rights record? Why do Saudi officials get a blank check, year after year, administration after administration?
Determined to pursue justice for Khashoggi, and dissidents like him, DAWN set out to find the answers to these important questions.
This sentence from the declassified intelligence report provided a window to some potential answers: “The 15-member Saudi team that arrived in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 included officials who worked for, or were associated with, the Saudi Center for Studies and Media Affairs (CSMARC) at the Royal Court.” This same institution, CSMARC, signed a lucrative lobbying contract with a Washington, DC firm in 2016. And after some digging, we learned that its lobbyists are registered as foreign agents and remain on the payroll of CSMARC, the same institution implicated in Khashoggi’s brutal murder.
Who are these lobbyists? In the pursuit of transparency and accountability, DAWN launched a project to give them a chance to drop their contract with CSMARC. When they refused, we decided to name and shame them publicly. This week, we started with Ed Newberry, the first lobbyist featured in our “Lobbyist Hall of Shame.” Newberry works for the well-known Washington, D.C. firm, Squire Patton Boggs (SPB), and he has been registered as a foreign agent for CSMARC since 2016.
CSMARC was previously headed by Saud al-Qahtani, a Saudi official sanctioned by the US government for his leading role in the murder of Khashoggi. Newberry signed an engagement agreement with al-Qahtani in September 2016 for a fee of $1.2 million to advocate on behalf of the Center before U.S. government officials. He continues to represent CSMARC, as disclosed in his July 29, 2021 Foreign Agents Registration Act filing.
DAWN partnered with other organizations to circulate a petition calling on the firm to drop its contract with CSMARC. The petition gathered thousands of signatures. People are outraged -- and why shouldn’t they be? It is disturbing that we live in a country where foreign dictators, who commit unimaginable abuses, can hire lobbyists and pay them millions of dollars to gain access to decision-makers in the US government.
Our “Lobbyist Hall of Shame” is thus starting with only three lobbyists, and we are going to add more names every month. Although Ed Newberry’s story is particularly outrageous, it is unfortunately not an exception.
In addition to exposing lobbyists, we have also released a set of recommendations:
Lobbyists should:
Conduct proper due diligence on their clients
Refuse to work for abusive governments, agencies, or officials
Adopt and pledge to comply with the OECD recommendations and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
Assess the human rights impact of their lobbying activities
Members of Congress should:
Refrain from meeting with lobbyists for abusive governments
Pass the “For the People Act of 2021” (H.R.1/S.1), and implement its regulations, especially those pertaining to foreign governments that have committed grave violations of human rights.
State Bar Associations should:
Disbar lobbyists and lawyers found to be engaged in unethical acts
Members of the public should:
File public complaints against lawyers and lobbyists who misrepresent the human rights abuses of their clients with the Bar Association where they are registered to practice law
These recommendations will massively improve transparency surrounding the activities conducted by lobbyists who work on behalf of all governments, from the Middle East to Africa and beyond. No matter which region of the world we focus on, we will all benefit when we can shine a light on who is currently working behind the scenes to whitewash the crimes of the worst human rights offenders across the world. These recommendations empower the public and decision-makers to shift their current course, and to dismantle the pay-to-play system of impunity that prevails on Capitol Hill.
Transparency is the first step toward accountability, for Jamal Khashoggi of course, and also for anyone who has suffered because lobbyists in the US help to secure support for abusive governments abroad.
Raed Jarrar is a longtime human rights activist and the advocacy director at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN). You can follow him on Twitter at @raedjarrar
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of Vanguard Africa, the Vanguard Africa Foundation, or its staff.