New 2020 Lobbying Strategy: Deeper Outreach to Think Tanks

Here is more from Roll Call:

It’s hard to imagine a more bonkers, unpredictable and politically toxic backdrop for K Street operators than the current one. But just wait until 2020 actually arrives. 

The presidential election year will hit lobbyists with potential risks all around. Candidates up and down the ballot will press proposals to remake the influence industry and to overhaul the nation’s campaign finance system. More candidates will reject K Street and business donations. The approaching elections, along with an expected impeachment trial early on, will turn Capitol Hill into an even bigger political mess.

Still, lobbyists say they have no plans to zip up their campaign checkbooks, hide under their desks or decamp from the capital.

Instead, they’re brewing alternative strategies, workarounds that include deeper outreach to think tanks, academia and other institutions that can lend policy gravitas to shape major discussions over health care, immigration, trade, taxes and other matters that will feature prominently on the campaign trail and beyond.

Lobbyists and lobbying firms have ramped up outreach to think tanks over the years, making thousands of contacts at Washington, DC-area think tanks large and small each year.  In turn, think tanks often lobby the executive and legislative branches.

Foreign governments have also been hiring lobbying firms for help with outreach to think tanks.

New Report: Government More Trusted Than Think Tanks

Here is more from Associations Now:

Even in an era when congressional staffers are hearing a lot of arguments about the issues of the day from all directions, more traditional advocacy voices are still finding room in the conversation.

That’s a key finding of “Surround Sound,” a new report from the Public Affairs Council in partnership with the research firm Morning Consult.

In results from an online survey of 173 congressional staffers and federal employees, 8 in 10 respondents stated that they trusted political information from trade associations, and nearly the same amount (79 percent) said they trusted think tanks. The report found that associations and think tanks were generally more trusted than individual businesses (59 percent), lobbyists (61 percent), and online sources unaffiliated with the media (55 percent).

However, associations and think tanks don’t top the chart of most trusted sources by staffers—those generally tend to be official government sources, such as the Government Accountability Office (90 percent), the Congressional Research Service (88 percent), and federal agencies (86 percent).

When asked to compare the effectiveness of different advocacy techniques, congressional staff rate personal visits to Washington, DC (83%) or district offices (81%), and think tank reports (81%) at the top of the list.

When Think Tanking Becomes Illegal

When most people think of think tanks, they may picture soporific talks on the minutiae of energy policy or foreign affairs, men in suits pontificating about esoteric executive branch regulations, or 100-page policy proposals to update the Merchant Marine Act of 1920.

While all that exists, a much darker side lies just under the surface, one that involves PR gurus, lobbyists, foreign governments, spy agencies, embassies, corporations, trade associations, political hacks, shady consultants, and various categories of movers and shakers all trying to gather information and influence ideas and the thousands of scholars that live in and around Washington.

Here is a recent example from Reuters:

A Maryland man has pleaded guilty to charges that he failed to register as a foreign agent in connection with lobbying work he did for the Pakistani government in an effort to shape U.S. foreign policy, the Justice Department said on Monday.

The newly unsealed case against Nisar Ahmed Chaudhry, a Pakistani national and U.S. permanent resident, marks a rare instance in which the Justice Department has pursued a prosecution under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires people who lobby on behalf of foreign governments or political parties to register with the United States.

In Chaudhry’s case, filed April 19 and unsealed on Monday, the government said he worked to influence U.S. officials on foreign policies toward Pakistan from 2012 through 2018 without disclosing it.

The Justice Department said he represented that his activities were merely educational and not affiliated with Pakistan’s government when he met with think tank scholars and current and former U.S. government officials, including U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents who interviewed Chaudhry when he returned to the United States from travels to Pakistan. 

Here is what the US Justice Department said:

Chaudhry interacted on a routine basis with representatives of the Government of Pakistan, at their Embassy in Washington, D.C. and consular office in New York City.  Chaudhry also interacted with numerous institutes, foundations and organizations operating in and around Washington, D.C., commonly referred to as "think tanks," that played a role in shaping and influencing U.S. foreign policy.  Chaudhry organized roundtable discussions in Washington, D.C. and Maryland metropolitan areas between his American government and think tank contacts and visiting Pakistan government officials to influence United States foreign policy in a direction favorable to Pakistan’s interests.   Chaudhry cultivated contacts within these entities and the U.S. government in order to obtain in-depth information regarding the U.S. government's policies towards Pakistan.  Chaudhry then sought to neutralize unfavorable views of Pakistan held by current and former U.S. government officials by employing certain methods of discussion with these individuals during personal interactions with them and/or by controlling and manipulating discussion at the roundtable events he organized or attended.

In order to be more effective in obtaining information of interest to Pakistan, and to gain a strategic advantage in acquiring information that might not otherwise be divulged to official representatives of the Government of Pakistan, Chaudhry falsely represented that his activities were solely educational in nature and not affiliated with the Pakistan government.  These representations were made not only to American think tank scholars, but also to current and former U.S. government officials, including U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents who interviewed Chaudhry upon entry into the United States from his travels to Pakistan.

According to his plea agreement, Chaudhry regularly traveled to Pakistan to brief high-level Pakistan government officials on information obtained from his American government and think tank contacts.

It has not been publicly disclosed which think tanks Chaudhry frequented, but a link from the Embassy of Pakistan shows that the government of Pakistan has embraced a number of think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation, United States Institute of Peace (USIP), Atlantic Council, Wilson Center, New America, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Even with all of those interactions, US-Pakistan relations have taken a nosedive in recent months.  Most recently, the US and Pakistani governments formally imposed mutual curbs on the travel and movements of each other's diplomats.  Now, Pakistani diplomats and their families cannot travel more than 25 miles from Washington without prior permission.  In other words, they are essentially stuck riding the think tank circuit in DC and nearby environs.  The good news?  There are about 500 think tanks to choose from.

Here is a recent Think Tank Watch piece about fake think tanking.

Meet the Tiny Think Tank That Destroyed the Iran Nuclear Deal

This is from the New York Times:

While many hands gripped the sword that undercut the Iran nuclear deal, no one outside the Trump administration was a more persistent or effective critic than Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of a hawkish Washington think tank [Foundation for Defense of Democracies, of FDD].

But rather than publicly celebrate President Trump’s decision Tuesday to jettison the accord, he is mourning its demise, saying he genuinely wanted to fix the agreement and worries that its unraveling could be dangerous.

That lament, though, has enraged the pact’s supporters, who never saw a fix as remotely palatable to Mr. Trump and blame Mr. Dubowitz above all others for providing the intellectual foundation for its passing. They now say he is trying to distance himself from the potentially catastrophic results.

During the congressional debate on the deal, he and his foundation colleagues testified in opposition to the deal 17 times over an 18-month period. By contrast, officials from the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, more established conservative think tanks, testified only once.

More recently, Mr. Dubowitz was the only nongovernmental official routinely consulted by both European and American negotiators in a monthslong back-and-forth over a possible side agreement to the deal, and he sometimes reviewed secret drafts. He wrote, according to two administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, parts of a report on Iran that Brian H. Hook, the chief American negotiator in the recent talks, took to White House meetings — a highly unusual step. He advised many of the deal’s most prominent critics on Capitol Hill.

But he is far from the usual tweedy think-tanker. Raised in Canada, trained as a lawyer and having worked in venture capital, Mr. Dubowitz wears tailored French suits and keeps his curly hair just so. In 2016, he received $560,221 in compensation as the foundation’s chief executive.

Top officials in the Obama administration often dismissed Washington’s foreign policy think tanks as paid agents of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, countries that annually invest tens of millions in the Washington influence game.

The Free Beacon notes that the New York Times had to issue multiple corrections to the story.  NewsBuster details the corrections.  Following are the corrections, as outlined by NYT:

An earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the salary of Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of Foundation for Defense of Democracies, when compared with those of leaders of other Washington think tanks. Mr. Dubowitz’s $560,221 compensation in 2016 was determined by the foundation’s board of directors and is commensurate with the average annual salary of other think tank leaders in Washington in recent years. It is not nearly twice as much as the salaries of his counterparts. The article also inaccurately linked the foundation to Israel’s Likud party. While the think tank does align with some of Likud’s positions, it is not directly involved with the party. The article also referred imprecisely to the funding of conferences held by the foundation and the Hudson Institute. While Elliott Broidy provided $2.7 million in funds for consulting, marketing and other services, the foundation says it received only $360,000 from Mr. Broidy for one conference.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch piece about FDD and how it punches above its weight.

Obama Allies Start "Non-Think Tank" to Target Trump Foreign Policy

Here is more from Politico:

Former Obama administration officials unveiled a new advocacy group Tuesday aimed at pushing back on President Donald Trump's foreign policy initiatives.

The push is led by former deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes and former White House deputy assistant Jake Sullivan, who both served under President Barack Obama. Rhodes and Sullivan, who also worked as senior policy adviser to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016, will co-chair the new National Security Action organization.

“We’re committed to organizing an effective, strategic, relentless, and national response to this administration’s dangerous approach to national security," Sullivan said in a news release. "This is not a new think tank or policy shop. Our role is to help shape the public debate on foreign policy and national security, holding Trump accountable and lifting up an alternative, affirmative vision."

Mr. Sullivan already works at a well-known think tank, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he is a Senior Fellow in the Geoeconomics and Strategy Program.

Mr. Rhodes said that around 500 former officials and campaign veterans have agreed to help National Security Action "act as speakers, writers, or on-call experts for candidates, think tanks, or advocacy organizations."

In other words, a number of think tanks will continue to be influenced by advocacy and lobbying organizations.

Lawyer Pens Heritage Doc Calling for End to Obama's Lobbying Ban

Gregory Walden, a non-staff member of The Heritage Foundation, and a Senior Counsel with law/lobby powerhouse Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, has just written a piece for the think tank arguing that restrictions on lobbyists in the administration discourages good candidates from serving and proposing reversing President Obama's lobbying ban.

The full paper, which was presented at a September 26 event at Heritage, can be read here.  Mr. Walden is a former Associate Counsel to President George H.W. Bush.