9/6/2014, "Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks," NY Times, Eric Lipton, Brooke Williams, and Nicholas Confessore. 9/7 print ed.
"The agreement signed last year by the Norway Ministry of Foreign Affairs was explicit: For $5 million, Norway’s partner in Washington would push top officials at the White House, at the Treasury Department and in Congress to double spending on a United States foreign aid program.
But the recipient of the cash was not one of the many Beltway lobbying firms that work every year on behalf of foreign governments.
It was the Center for Global Development,
a nonprofit research organization, or think tank, one of many such
groups in Washington that lawmakers, government officials and the news
media have long relied on to provide independent policy analysis and
scholarship.
More
than a dozen prominent Washington research groups have received tens of
millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while
pushing United States government officials to adopt policies that often
reflect the donors’ priorities, an investigation by The New York Times
has found.
The
money is increasingly transforming the once-staid think-tank world into
a muscular arm of foreign governments’ lobbying in Washington. And it
has set off troubling questions about intellectual freedom: Some
scholars say they have been pressured to reach conclusions friendly to
the government financing the research.
The
think tanks do not disclose the terms of the agreements they have
reached with foreign governments. And they have not registered with the
United States government as representatives of the donor countries, an
omission that appears, in some cases, to be a violation of federal law,
according to several legal specialists who examined the agreements at
the request of The Times.
As a result, policy makers who rely on think tanks are often unaware of the role of foreign governments in funding the research.
Joseph Sandler,
a lawyer and expert on the statute that governs Americans lobbying for
foreign governments, said the arrangements between the countries and
think tanks “opened a whole new window into an aspect of the
influence-buying in Washington that has not previously been exposed.”
“It
is particularly egregious because with a law firm or lobbying firm, you
expect them to be an advocate,” Mr. Sandler added. “Think tanks have
this patina of academic neutrality and objectivity, and that is being
compromised.”
The arrangements involve Washington’s most influential think tanks, including the Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Atlantic Council.
Each is a major recipient of overseas funds, producing policy papers,
hosting forums and organizing private briefings for senior United States
government officials that typically align with the foreign governments’
agendas.
Most
of the money comes from countries in Europe, the Middle East and
elsewhere in Asia, particularly the oil-producing nations of the United
Arab Emirates, Qatar
and Norway, and takes many forms. The United Arab Emirates, a major
supporter of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, quietly
provided a donation of more than $1 million to help build the center’s
gleaming new glass and steel headquarters not far from the White House.
Qatar, the small but wealthy Middle East nation, agreed last year to
make a $14.8 million, four-year donation to Brookings, which has helped
fund a Brookings affiliate in Qatar and a project on United States
relations with the Islamic world.
Some
scholars say the donations have led to implicit agreements that the
research groups would refrain from criticizing the donor governments.
“If
a member of Congress is using the Brookings reports, they should be
aware — they are not getting the full story,” said Saleem Ali, who
served as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center
in Qatar and who said he had been told during his job interview that he
could not take positions critical of the Qatari government in papers.
“They may not be getting a false story, but they are not getting the
full story.”
In
interviews, top executives at the think tanks strongly defended the
arrangements, saying the money never compromised the integrity of their
organizations’ research. Where their scholars’ views overlapped with
those of donors, they said, was coincidence.
“Our
business is to influence policy with scholarly, independent research,
based on objective criteria, and to be policy-relevant, we need to
engage policy makers,” said Martin S. Indyk, vice president and director
of the Foreign Policy Program at Brookings, one of the oldest and most
prestigious think tanks in Washington.
“Our currency is our credibility,” said Frederick Kempe, chief executive of the Atlantic Council,
a fast-growing research center that focuses mainly on international
affairs and has accepted donations from at least 25 countries since
2008. “Most of the governments that come to us, they understand we are
not lobbyists. We are a different entity, and they work with us for
totally different purposes.”
In
their contracts and internal documents, however, foreign governments
are often explicit about what they expect from the research groups they
finance.
“In Washington, it is difficult for a small country to gain access to powerful politicians, bureaucrats and experts,” states an internal report
commissioned by the Norwegian Foreign Affairs Ministry assessing its
grant making. “Funding powerful think tanks is one way to gain such
access, and some think tanks in Washington are openly conveying that
they can service only those foreign governments that provide funding.”
The
think tanks’ reliance on funds from overseas is driven, in part, by
intensifying competition within the field: The number of policy groups
has multiplied in recent years, while research grants from the United
States government have dwindled.
Foreign
officials describe these relationships as pivotal to winning influence
on the cluttered Washington stage, where hundreds of nations jockey for
attention from the United States government.
The arrangements vary: Some
countries work directly with think tanks, drawing contracts that define
the scope and direction of research. Others donate money to the think
tanks, and then pay teams of lobbyists and public relations consultants
to push the think tanks to promote the country’s agenda.
“Japan
is not necessarily the most interesting subject around the world,” said
Masato Otaka, a spokesman for the Japanese Embassy, when asked why
Japan donates heavily to American research groups. “We’ve been
experiencing some slower growth in the economy. I think our presence is
less felt than before.”
The scope of foreign financing for American think tanks is difficult to determine. But since 2011, at least 64 foreign governments, state-controlled entities or government officials have contributed to a group of 28 major United States-based research organizations, according to disclosures by the institutions and government documents. What little information the organizations volunteer about their donors, along with public records and lobbying reports filed with American officials by foreign representatives, indicates a minimum of $92 million in contributions or commitments from overseas government interests over the last four years. The total is certainly more.
The scope of foreign financing for American think tanks is difficult to determine. But since 2011, at least 64 foreign governments, state-controlled entities or government officials have contributed to a group of 28 major United States-based research organizations, according to disclosures by the institutions and government documents. What little information the organizations volunteer about their donors, along with public records and lobbying reports filed with American officials by foreign representatives, indicates a minimum of $92 million in contributions or commitments from overseas government interests over the last four years. The total is certainly more.
After
questions from The Times, some of the research groups agreed to provide
limited additional information about their relationships with countries
overseas. Among them was the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, whose research agenda focuses mostly on foreign policy; it agreed last month to release a list
of 13 foreign government donors, from Germany to China, though the
organization declined to disclose details of its contracts with those
nations or actual donation amounts.
In
an interview, John J. Hamre, president and chief executive of the
center, acknowledged that the organization’s scholars at times advocate
causes with the Obama administration and Congress on the topics that
donor governments have funded them to study. But Mr. Hamre stressed that
he did not view it as lobbying — and said his group is most certainly
not a foreign agent.
“I
don’t represent anybody,” Mr. Hamre, a former deputy secretary of
defense, said. “I never go into the government to say, ‘I really want to
talk to you about Morocco or about United Arab Emirates or Japan.’ I
have conversations about these places all the time with everybody, and I
am never there representing them as a lobbyist to their interests.”
Several
legal experts who reviewed the documents, however, said the tightening
relationships between United States think tanks and their overseas
sponsors could violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act,
the 1938 federal law that sought to combat a Nazi propaganda campaign
in the United States. The law requires groups that are paid by foreign
governments with the intention of influencing public policy to register
as “foreign agents” with the Justice Department.
“I
am surprised, quite frankly, at how explicit the relationship is
between money paid, papers published and policy makers and politicians
influenced,” said Amos Jones, a Washington lawyer who has specialized in
the foreign agents act, after reviewing transactions between the Norway
government and Brookings, the Center for Global Development and other
groups.
At least one of the research groups conceded that it may in fact be violating the federal law.
“Yikes,”
said Todd Moss, the chief operating officer at the Center for Global
Development, after being shown dozens of pages of emails between his
organization and the government of Norway, which detail how his group
would lobby the White House and Congress on behalf of the Norway
government. “We will absolutely seek counsel on this.”
Parallels with lobbying
Parallels with lobbying
Parallels With Lobbying
The line between scholarly research and lobbying can sometimes be hard to discern.
Last
year (2013), Japan began an effort to persuade American officials to
accelerate negotiations over a free-trade agreement known as the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, one of Japan’s top priorities.
The country already had lobbyists on retainer, from the Washington firm
of Akin Gump, but decided to embark on a broader campaign.
Akin Gump lobbyists approached several influential members
of Congress and their staffs, including aides to Representative Charles
Boustany Jr., Republican of Louisiana, and Representative Dave
Reichert, Republican of Washington, seeking help in establishing a
congressional caucus devoted to the partnership, lobbying records show.
After those discussions, in October 2013, the lawmakers established just such a group, the Friends of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
To
bolster the new group’s credibility, Japanese officials sought
validation from outside the halls of Congress. Within weeks, they
received it from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to
which Japan has been a longtime donor. The center will not say how much
money the government has given — or for what exactly — but an
examination of its relationship with a state-funded entity called the
Japan External Trade Organization provides a glimpse.
In
the past four years, the organization has given the center at least
$1.1 million for “research and consulting” to promote trade and direct
investment between Japan and the United States. The center also houses visiting scholars
from within the Japanese government, including Hiroshi Waguri, an
executive in the Ministry of Defense, as well as Shinichi Isobe, an
executive from the trade organization.
In early December, the center held an event
featuring Mr. Boustany and Mr. Reichert, who spoke about the importance
of the trade agreement and the steps they were taking to pressure the
White House to complete it. In addition, at a Senate Foreign Relations
Committee hearing later that month, Matthew P. Goodman, a scholar at the
center, testified in favor of the agreement, his language driving home
the very message Japan’s lobbyists and their congressional allies were
seeking to convey.
The
agreement was critical to “success not only for the administration’s
regional economic policy but arguably for the entire Asia rebalancing
strategy,” Mr. Goodman said.
Mr.
Hamre, the center’s president, acknowledged that his organization’s
researchers were pushing for the trade deal (it remains pending). But he
said their advocacy was rooted in a belief that the agreement was good
for the United States economy and the country’s standing in Asia.
Andrew
Schwartz, a spokesman for the center, said that language in the
agreements the organization signs with foreign governments gives its
scholars final say over the policy positions they take — although he
acknowledged those provisions have not been included in all such
documents.
“We
have to respect their academic and intellectual independence,” Mr.
Otaka, the Japanese Embassy spokesman, said in a separate interview. But
one Japanese diplomat, who asked not to be named as he was not
authorized to discuss the matter, said the country expected favorable
treatment in return for donations to think tanks.
“If we put actual money in, we want to have a good result for that money — as it is an investment,” he said.
Qatar
and the United Arab Emirates — two nations that host large United
States military bases and view a continued American military presence as
central to their own national security — have been especially
aggressive in their giving to think tanks. The two Persian Gulf
monarchies are also engaged in a battle with each other to shape Western
opinion, with
Qatar arguing that
Muslim Brotherhood-style political
Islam is the Arab world’s best hope for democracy,
and the United Arab
Emirates seeking to persuade United States policy makers that
the
Brotherhood is a dangerous threat to the region’s stability.
The
United Arab Emirates, which has become a major supporter of the Center
for Strategic and International Studies over the past decade, turned to
the think tank in 2007 after an uproar in Congress
about the nation’s plan to purchase control of terminals in several
United States ports."...
[Ed. note: This was known as "The Dubai Ports Deal" at the time. "People at political level are comfortable with a global economy. They're comfortable with big economic players like Dubai." NPR interview transcript]
(continuing): "After lawmakers questioned whether the purchase
would be a national security threat to the United States, and the deal
was scuttled, the oil-rich nation sought to remake its image in
Washington, Mr. Hamre said.
The
nation paid the research organization to sponsor a lecture series “to
examine the strategic importance” of the gulf region and “identify
opportunities for constructive U.S. engagement.” It also paid the center
to organize annual trips to the gulf region during which dozens of
national security experts from the United States would get private
briefings from government officials there.
These and other events gave the United Arab Emirates’ senior diplomats an important platform to press their case. At a round table in Washington in March 2013,
Yousef Al Otaiba, the ambassador to the United States, pressed Gen.
Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about
whether the United States would remain committed to his country given
budget reductions in Washington.
Mr. Dempsey’s reply was quickly posted on the Facebook page
of the United Arab Emirates Embassy: The country, he assured Mr. Al
Otaiba and others in the crowd, was one of America’s “most credible and
capable allies, especially in the gulf region.”
Access to Power
Small
countries are finding that they can gain big clout by teaming up with
American research organizations. Perhaps the best example is Norway.
As
one of the world’s top oil producers, a member of NATO and a player in
peace negotiations in spots around the globe, Norway has an interest in a
broad range of United States policies.
The
country (Norway) has committed at least $24 million to an array of Washington
think tanks over the past four years, according to a tally by The Times,
transforming these nonprofits into a powerful but largely hidden arm of
the Norway Foreign Affairs Ministry. Documents obtained under that
country’s unusually broad open records laws reveal that American
research groups, after receiving money from Norway, have advocated in
Washington for enhancing Norway’s role in NATO, promoted its plans to expand oil drilling in the Arctic and pushed its climate change agenda.
Norway
paid the Center for Global Development, for example, to persuade the
United States government to spend more money on combating global warming
by slowing the clearing of forests in countries like Indonesia,
according to a 2013 project document describing work by the center and a consulting company called Climate Advisers. *
Norway
is a major funder of forest protection efforts around the world. But
while many environmentalists applaud the country’s lobbying for forest
protection, some have attacked the programs as self-interested: Slowing
deforestation could buy more time for Norway’s oil companies to continue
selling fossil fuels on the global market even as Norway and other
countries push for new carbon reduction policies. Oilwatch
International, an environmental advocacy group, calls forest protection a
“scheme whereby polluters use forests and land as supposed sponges for
their pollution.”
Kare
R. Aas, Norway’s ambassador to the United States, rejected this
criticism as ridiculous. As a country whose territory extends into the
Arctic, he said, Norway would be among the nations most affected by
global warming.
“We want to maintain sustainable living conditions in the North,” Mr. Aas said.
But
Norway’s agreement imposed very specific demands on the Center for
Global Development. The research organization, in return for Norway’s
money, was not simply asked to publish reports on combating climate
change. The project documents ask the think tank to persuade Washington
officials to double United States spending on global forest protection
efforts to $500 million a year.
“Target group: U.S. policy makers,” a progress report reads.
The
grant is already paying dividends. The center, crediting the Norwegian
government’s funding, helped arrange a November 2013 meeting with
Treasury Department officials. Scholars there also succeeded in having
language from their Norway-funded research included in a deforestation
report prepared by a White House advisory commission, according to an April progress report.
Norway
has also funded Arctic research at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, at a time when the country was seeking to expand
its oil drilling in the Arctic region.
Mr.
Hamre, of the center, said he was invited to Norway about five years
ago and given a presentation on the Arctic Circle, known in Norway as
the “High North.”
“What the hell is the High North?” he said in an interview, recalling that he was not familiar with the topic until then.
But
Norway’s government soon began sending checks to the center for a
research program on Arctic policy. By 2009, after the new
Norway-supported Arctic program was up and running, it brought Norway officials together with a key member of Congress to discuss the country’s “energy aspirations for the region.”
In
a March 2013 report, scholars from the center urged the Obama
administration to increase its military presence in the Arctic Circle,
to protect energy exploration efforts there and to increase the passage
of cargo ships through the region — the exact moves Norway has been
advocating.
The Brookings Institution,
which also accepted grants from Norway, has sought to help the country
gain access to American officials, documents show. One Brookings senior
fellow, Bruce Jones, offered in 2010 to reach out to State Department
officials to help arrange a meeting with a senior Norway official,
according to a government email. The Norway official wished to discuss his country’s role as a “middle power” and vital partner of the United States.
Brookings organized another event in April 2013,
in which one of Norway’s top officials on Arctic issues was seated next
to the State Department’s senior official on the topic and reiterated
the country’s priorities for expanding oil exploration in the Arctic.
William
J. Antholis, the managing director at Brookings, said that if his
scholars help Norway pursue its foreign policy agenda in Washington, it
is only because their rigorous, independent research led them to this
position. “The scholars are their own agents,” he said. “They are not
agents of these foreign governments.”
But
three lawyers who specialize in the law governing Americans’ activities
on behalf of foreign governments said that the Center for Global
Development and Brookings, in particular, appeared to have taken actions
that merited registration as foreign agents of Norway. The activities
by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Atlantic
Council, they added, at least raised questions.
“The Department of Justice needs to be looking at this,” said Joshua Rosenstein, a lawyer at Sandler Reiff.
Ona
Dosunmu, Brookings’s general counsel, examining the same documents,
said she remained convinced that was a misreading of the law.
Norway,
at least, is grateful for the work Brookings has done. During a speech
at Brookings in June, Norway’s foreign minister, Borge Brende, noted
that his country’s relationship with the think tank “has been mutually
beneficial for moving a lot of important topics.” Just before the
speech, in fact, Norway signed an agreement to contribute an additional
$4 million to the group.
Limits on Scholars
The
tens of millions in donations from foreign interests come with certain
expectations, researchers at the organizations said in interviews.
Sometimes the foreign donors move aggressively to stifle views contrary
to their own.
Michele
Dunne served for nearly two decades as a specialist in Middle Eastern
affairs at the State Department, including stints in Cairo and
Jerusalem, and on the White House National Security Council. In 2011,
she was a natural choice to become the founding director of the Atlantic
Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, named after the former prime minister of Lebanon, who was assassinated in 2005.
The center was created with a generous donation
from Bahaa Hariri, his eldest son, and with the support of the rest of
the Hariri family, which has remained active in politics and business in
the Middle East. Another son of the former prime minister served as
Lebanon’s prime minister from 2009 to 2011.
But by the summer of 2013, when Egypt’s military forcibly removed the country’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, Ms. Dunne soon realized there were limits to her independence.
But by the summer of 2013, when Egypt’s military forcibly removed the country’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, Ms. Dunne soon realized there were limits to her independence.
After she signed a
petition and testified before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee
urging the United States to suspend military aid to Egypt, calling Mr.
Morsi’s ouster a “military coup,” Bahaa Hariri called the Atlantic
Council to complain, executives with direct knowledge of the events
said. Ms. Dunne declined to comment on the matter. But four months after the call, Ms. Dunne left the Atlantic Council.
In
an interview, Mr. Kempe said he had never taken any action on behalf of
Mr. Hariri to try to modify positions that Ms. Dunne or her colleagues
took. Ms. Dunne left, he said, in part because she wanted to focus on
research, not managing others, as she was doing at the Atlantic Council.
“Differences
she may have had with colleagues, management or donors on Middle
Eastern issues — inevitable in such a fraught environment where opinions
vary widely — don’t touch our fierce defense of individual experts’
intellectual independence,” Mr. Kempe said.
Ms.
Dunne was replaced by Francis J. Ricciardone Jr., who served as United
States ambassador to Egypt during the rule of Hosni Mubarak, the
longtime Egyptian military and political leader forced out of power at
the beginning of the Arab Spring. Mr. Ricciardone, a career foreign
service officer, had earlier been criticized by conservatives and human rights activists for being too deferential to the Mubarak government.
Scholars
at other Washington think tanks, who were granted anonymity to detail
confidential internal discussions, described similar experiences that
had a chilling effect on their research and ability to make public
statements that might offend current or future foreign sponsors. At
Brookings, for example, a donor with apparent ties to the Turkish
government suspended its support after a scholar there made critical
statements about the country, sending a message, one scholar there said.
“It
is the self-censorship that really affects us over time,” the scholar
said. “But the fund-raising environment is very difficult at the moment,
and Brookings keeps growing and it has to support itself.”
The
sensitivities are especially important when it comes to the Qatari
government — the single biggest foreign donor to Brookings.
Brookings executives cited strict internal policies that
they said ensure their scholars’ work is “not influenced by the views
of our funders,” in Qatar or in Washington. They also pointed to several
reports published at the Brookings Doha Center in recent years that,
for example, questioned the Qatari government’s efforts to revamp its
education system or criticized the role it has played in supporting
militants in Syria.
But in 2012, when a revised agreement was signed between Brookings and the Qatari government, the Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself praised the agreement on its website, announcing that “the center will assume its role in reflecting the bright image of Qatar in the international media, especially the American ones.” Brookings officials also acknowledged that they have regular meetings with Qatari government officials about the center’s activities and budget, and that the former Qatar prime minister sits on the center’s advisory board.
But in 2012, when a revised agreement was signed between Brookings and the Qatari government, the Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself praised the agreement on its website, announcing that “the center will assume its role in reflecting the bright image of Qatar in the international media, especially the American ones.” Brookings officials also acknowledged that they have regular meetings with Qatari government officials about the center’s activities and budget, and that the former Qatar prime minister sits on the center’s advisory board.
Mr.
Ali, who served as one of the first visiting fellows at the Brookings
Doha Center after it opened in 2009, said such a policy, though
unwritten, was clear.
“There
was a no-go zone when it came to criticizing the Qatari government,”
said Mr. Ali, who is now a professor at the University of Queensland in
Australia. “It was unsettling for the academics there. But it was the
price we had to pay.”"
=========================
1/13/2012, "US Republicans stir transatlantic tensions over climate change," EurActiv
"Ironically, the ‘cap and trade’ idea that underwrites the global carbon market was originally the brainchild of US Republicans. But this changed because of what one senior US climate negotiator at Kyoto described as a collection of “toxic” ingredients.
“There are three issues–
constraining industry,
sending money abroad, and
strengthening the UN –
that are inflammatory on their own right,” Nigel Purvis, a State Department official under the Clinton and Bush administrations, said on the phone from Washington....
Nigel Purvis, now the president of the Climate Advisers consultancy in Washington, agreed that there was long-term cause for optimism."...
===============
Among comments to NY Times article:
"Anetliner Netliner is a trusted commenter Washington, DC area 1 hour ago
==================
Re: Dubai Ports Deal attempted in 2006 by George W. Bush:
Re: Dubai Ports Deal attempted in 2006 by George W. Bush:
3/8/2006, "Lobbyist's Last-Minute Bid Set Off (Dubai) Ports Controversy," NPR, Peter Overby
.
I don't blame the think tanks-- they need to make their payrolls-- but the donor relationships should be disclosed as required by law. As well, each study funded by a particular research donation should disclose that donation in the study, so that readers would be aware of any possible bias. This relates to all funded research, not just research paid for by foreign donors."