Chuck Raasch
As a member of Congress, Dick Gephardt often spoke passionately about
the need for the United States to recognize as genocide the mass deaths
of as many as 1.5 million Armenians under the Turkish government that
began one century ago.
But as a lobbyist for Turkey since leaving
Congress in 2005, Gephardt, a Democrat, has taken the opposite side. His
behind-the-scenes work has been cited as a factor in the annual failure
of Congress to recognize the Armenian genocide.
Now,
in the 100th-anniversary year of what Armenians refer to as Meds
Yeghern — “great calamity” (*) — two Armenian-American groups are pressuring
Gephardt’s lobbying firm to drop Turkey as a client, and for companies
to drop Gephardt as their lobbyist.
Gephardt, who declined to
respond to repeated interview requests, has ignored the Armenian groups’
letters. Three companies have ended contracts with the Gephardt Group
since the two Armenian-American groups launched a letter-writing
campaign in January, although none publicly tied the decision to the
letters.
Critics of the former congressman from St. Louis say he
is just another example of the revolving door between electoral office
and the lucrative lobbying business, where policy positions seem to
change based on who’s paying the bill.
Son of a Milkman
Gephardt
often described himself as the son of a milkman in 18 years
representing St. Louis in Congress. He campaigned as a Midwestern
everyman, champion of the working class, with All-American ambitions
that led to two unsuccessful campaigns for the White House. But since
leaving office, he has been emblematic of the path from elective office
to private influence, as ex-members of Congress and their former
staffers use the power and prestige they built in public office to segue
to lucrative lobbying careers. The nonpartisan watchdog Center for
Responsive Politics lists 427 ex-members of Congress who have lobbied or
advised lobbyists, including former Republican U.S. senators from
Missouri Jim Talent, John Ashcroft and Christopher “Kit” Bond.
When
he retired from Congress in 2007, Gephardt told the Post-Dispatch that,
as a lobbyist, he would be “involved in the same issues I used to be
involved in.” He looked forward to weekends off for the first time in 30
years. He built a house in Sonoma, Calif., and had a condo in Naples,
Fla., and promised his wife, Jane, that after tromping through Iowa and
New Hampshire presidential snows, she would never be cold again.
Gephardt
also said that his views of relations between the U.S. and Turkey —
often described as the world’s leading Muslim democracy — changed
profoundly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“We’ve got to have models out there of Muslim governments that are moderate and successful,” he said.
And
yet in 2003, while running for president two years after 9/11, Gephardt
co-sponsored HR193, which said recognition of “Armenian Genocide,”
along with the Holocaust and genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda, must be
recognized to “help prevent future genocides.”
Four years later, he was accepting money from Turkey to fight such recognition.
Over
the last six years, the Gephardt Group has earned $4.7 million to $6.7
million annually from a host of corporations and associations, including
Google, Goldman Sachs and Boeing, and St. Louis area employers Ameren,
Anheuser-Busch, Peabody Energy and Prairie State Generating, according
to CRP.
Besides Turkey, Gephardt has had contracts worth a
collective $1.4 million representing Taiwan, Georgia, El Salvador and
South Korea, according to Justice Department records.
His
company’s most recent contract with Turkey, signed in March, is for
$170,000 a month, with roughly half going to subcontractors, including a
firm that employed former Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
In
2013, Gephardt and Hastert helped arrange a visit to Turkey for eight
members of Congress. According to the National Journal, they did so by
exploiting loopholes in lobbying reforms passed in the wake of the Jack
Abramoff scandal that ended lobbyists’ ability to pay for trips for
members of Congress. Lobbyists can, however, plan and accompany members
on trips paid for by foreign governments, as the National Journal said
happened in this case.
In lobbying for Turkey, Gephardt has
stepped to the other side of a highly polarizing, highly charged debate.
In recent months, other governments, including Germany, have declared
the deaths of Armenians genocide. Pope Francis in April urged such
recognition.
In response, the Turkish government — saying modern
Turkey should not have to atone for what it calls deaths from war and
starvation in the Ottoman Empire in World War I — has pulled envoys from
the Vatican.
In the U.S., the Armenian genocide debate is
“inflamed” by politically active, second- and third-generation
Armenian-Americans whose identity is wrapped in a belief that history
demands recognition of genocide, said Edward Erickson, a professor of
military history at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College in
Quantico, Va.
But geopolitically, said Erickson, author of a dozen
books on Turkey, “the United States needs Turkey a lot more than Turkey
needs the United States.”
Among Armenian-Americans, there is a simple explanation for Gephardt’s shift.
It
“is premised on one thing, and one thing only, which is money,” said
Kenneth Hachikian, chairman of the Armenian National Committee of
America.
“The cause of genocide prevention, a core moral
imperative of our age, requires, as the pope so powerfully stated, that
we not engage in ‘concealing or denying evil,’” Hachikian, a
second-generation Armenian-American, told a congressional hearing in
April.
At that hearing, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said Turkey’s
“campaign of denial … underwrites a disinformation campaign to confuse
the historical record.” After the hearing, he identified Gephardt as a
key lobbyist in that effort.
The code of discretion
“As
a matter of policy, we don’t discuss our clients,” said Thomas
O’Donnell, a co-founding partner in Gephardt’s lobbying firm and his
former chief of staff in Congress.Through O’Donnell, Gephardt declined
interview requests.O’Donnell is among several Gephardt employees with
deep roots in Turkish-American relations. Another is Michael Messmer,
vice president of Gephardt Government Affairs, and a St. Louis native.
He was also on Gephardt’s House leadership staff and later was assistant
director of the Congress and U.S. Foreign Policy program at the
influential Council on Foreign Relations.
The CRP says 29 former Gephardt Capitol Hill staffers are lobbyists or have worked for lobbying firms.
Messmer
also did not respond to interview requests, nor did Hastert. Turkey’s
embassy in Washington did not respond to multiple calls and emails.
Gephardt,
74, is not alone in lobbying for positions opposite those taken while
in public office. Bond opposed Obamacare as a senator but lobbied the Missouri Legislature in 2014 to expand Medicaid, a key component of President Barack Obama’s health care reforms.
But Gephardt’s change on the genocide issue is stark because of the passion he once brought to the position.
In
1998, speaking to frequent applause from the Armenian National
Committee of America in a Capitol Hill event, Gephardt called for
Congress to “solemnly remember the genocide which occurred many years
ago, but which so deeply affected so many families and people in
Armenia. We must always keep that fact, those real facts, in our mind.”
But
after going to work for Turkey in 2007, he told the Post-Dispatch that
he was working toward a reconciliation that would avoid a genocide
declaration, to “get all the facts on the table and let the chips fall
where they may.”
Gephardt’s about-face on the issue is mirrored by that of President Barack Obama.
As
a candidate in 2008, Obama said “the facts are undeniable” that
genocide occurred. And yet in April, Obama avoided using the word
“genocide” in his annual statement on the events in Armenia for the
seventh consecutive time.
Instead, Obama used “massacre,” “horrific violence” and “dark chapter of history.”
While
advocates for genocide recognition say that Turkey cannot move on from a
dark chapter by denying it, some historians say the record is not clear
in implicating the Turkish government.
Turkey has driven home
that uncertainty with the help of not only Gephardt and Hastert, but
ex-Republican House leader Bob Livingston and former administration and
Pentagon officials.
Records at the Justice Department show scores
of Gephardt meetings, email exchanges, arranged visits on Capitol Hill
with Turkish diplomats and contacts with the highest officials of the
Obama administration, including former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton.
In late 2010, for instance, records show Gephardt lobbied
Clinton, top Obama advisers and members of Congress days before
then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pulled back a promised vote on a
genocide resolution.
In the wake of actions like this, fellow Democrats have become some of Gephardt’s biggest critics.
“It
really impairs having credibility on human rights issues when we pick
and choose the genocides we recognize,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.,
the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and a persistent
critic of Gephardt’s about-face.
However, Senate Foreign Relations
Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., dismissed the impact of the
revolving door on stopping the Armenian genocide declaration.
“The
relationship we have with Turkey and its importance to so many things
that are happening in the region right now” is reason enough to avoid
it, he said.
Letter-writing campaign
In
January, as the 100th anniversary of Meds Yeghern approached, two
Armenian-American groups began pressuring Gephardt and his clients.“The
American corporate community must have a zero-tolerance policy against
any action that either covers up past genocides or in any way
contributes to future atrocities,” declared a Jan. 28 letter to the
former congressman signed by leaders of the groups, the Armenian
National Committee of America and the Armenian Assembly of America.“To
that end, as a courtesy, we would like to inform you that we have
reached out to all of your clients … to educate them about your lobbying
on behalf of the Turkish government.”
The groups sent letters to
roughly 200 clients who had hired either Gephardt or other lobbying
firms that represented Turkey, saying the companies had a “troubling
relationship” with genocide deniers.
The results of the letter campaign are unclear.
Spokesmen
for Google, Boeing and of St. Louis-area companies Ameren,
Anheuser-Busch and Peabody either refused to comment or said they had no
record of receiving the letter.
But Frederick D. Palmer,
Peabody’s senior vice president for government relations, wrote back to
the Armenian-American groups saying his company would not drop lobbyists
just because they represented Turkey.
“The events you describe
are tragic indeed, but there is no basis to punish Turkey today, an ally
for more than 60 years along with being a democratic and free market
example that is rare in the region,” Palmer wrote.
The Los Angeles
World Airport canceled its $20,000-a-month contract with Gephardt
exactly a month after the letter was sent. Mary Grady, managing director
of media and public relations for the airport, declined to say why.
Mike
Zampa, communications director for the Port of Oakland, said the port
allowed a $160,000 contract with Gephardt to expire in January but
described it as a normal change.
The Human Rights Campaign also
canceled its $10,000 monthly contract, but Fred Sainz, the rights
organization’s director of communications, said it had “nothing to do
with the Armenia letter.”
A lobbyist left the Gephardt Group, Sainz said, “and we followed him to his new firm.”
"St. Louis-Dispatch," June 6, 2015
-----------------------------------
(*) At this point, it is needless to say that Medz Yeghern does not mean "great calamity," but "great (heinous) crime" ("Armeniaca").
No comments:
Post a Comment