Here’s four other times US lobbyists made Malaysian headlines

Once again, US lobbyists have come under the spotlight in Malaysia while working on Malaysian payroll.

This time, it was Pandan MP Mohd Rafizi Ramli who claimed that the Johor-based Godfrey Group Limited is paying The 45 Group LLC in the US US$25,000 per month to strengthen relations between Malaysia and the US.

This, he said, raises questions on whether the lobbyist was involved in lobbying on cases that implicated Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, such as the 1MDB scandal.

Najib had consistently denied wrongdoing in the 1MDB scandal, while his aide Tengku Sharifuddin Tengku Ahmad had denied that the government had instructed, appointed, or contracted Godfrey, The 45 Group, or The 45 Group CEO Healy Baumgardner-Nardone.

This is contrary to documents lodged to the US Department of Justice under its Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara).

Nevertheless, Baumgardner-Nardone and The 45 Group was far from the first to come under scrutiny in Malaysia. Here are several others:

Apco Worldwide

In April 2010, the then-Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz revealed that Malaysia had paid over US$24.2 million to Apco Worldwide over the course of a year, or about RM76.8 million at the time.

Apco was hired to improve Malaysia’s image and strengthen relations between Malaysia and the US from 2009 to 2010.

“In US, there is the lobby culture. That is normal, every country who wants to be close to US has to resort to lobbying. You think a local company can do that for us?” he said in justifying the cost.

He added that it was not easy to secure a meeting between Najib and the then-US president Barack Obama, as well as other meetings between Malaysian and US officials.

Later in 2013, it was revealed that Apco Worldwide together with David All Group and FBC Media had paid several opinion writers to run a smear campaign aimed at then-Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim.

One writer, Joshua Trevino, filed a Fara disclosure that he was paid US$389,724.70 (about RM1.2 million) for his work between May 2008 and April 2011, which includes commissioning 10 other writers.

Asia Pacific Policy Centre

In 2009, Anwar revealed in court that the Prime Minister’s Office and the Malaysian think-tank Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) had established ties with the US lobby group Asia Pacific Policy Centre (APPC).

This was to establish better ties with Asia Pacific leaders, especially the US.

“APPC along with ISIS (was) tasked to invite US congress leaders to come to a series of dialogues here,” he told the Kuala Lumpur High Court, adding that the events would be launched by the then-prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and not him.

Anwar said he also knew APPC head Douglas H Paal and consented to him writing a pro-Anwar article following his arrest in 1998.

The case pertained a defamation suit by Anwar against the New Straits Times for linking Anwar to the lobbyist, insinuating that Anwar is a foreign agent, and that he had stashed away RM3 billion in foreign accounts.

Anwar eventually won the case and was awarded RM100,000 in damages. The presiding judge noted that there is nothing sinister in engaging APPC to foster dialogue.

“Looking at it in this light, I do not think members of the community will see anything wrong with the government funding the dialogues. There cannot be anything defamatory about this.

“Certainly, the imputation about the plaintiff (Anwar) being an American agent is quite baseless,” said the then-judicial commissioner judicial commissioner Harminder Singh Dhaliwall.

Jack Abramoff

In 2006, reports emerged that US Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff played a role in arranging a meeting in May 2002 between the then-prime minister Mahathir and then-US President George W Bush.

The Los Angeles Times reported that he had contacted presidential adviser Karl Rove at least on four occasions to arrange the meeting, before he was told Mahathir would soon been getting an official White House invitation.

The Malaysian embassy in Washington DC had paid Abramoff US$1.2 million (RM4.4 million) to arrange the meeting, said a report by the US Senate Committee of Indian Affairs.

The committee had turned up documents regarding Abramoff’s lobbying work for Malaysia while investigating allegations that he was defrauded a number of Native American tribes that had sought his services in establishing their gambling operations. Abramoff had pleaded guilty to the fraud.

Mahathir had previously denied that Malaysia had paid to arrange the meeting.

“I understood some people paid a sum of money to lobbyists in America but I do not know who these people were and it was not the Malaysian government,” Bernama quoted him as saying.

Alexander Strategy Group

There was at least one other Washington lobbying firm involved in arranging the meeting between Mahathir and Bush, and that is the firm Alexander Strategies.

The firm was run by Abramoff’s friend and former chief of staff to then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay - was also paid up to US$1 million (RM3.7 million) during this period for helping boost Malaysia's reputation in Washington.

The firm was also credited for arranging trips for US members of Congress to Malaysia, including for including DeLay and several Democrats.- Mkini