AMY GOODMAN: Last week, president and, let’s not forget, presidential candidate Bill Clinton went off to Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, for what was billed as a summit of peacekeepers to establish an international coordinating committee against terrorism. If the president was really serious about going after human rights abusers and ending the killing of innocent civilians wherever it may occur in the world, he might set his sights a little closer to home — as in many of the corporate lobbyists who walk the halls of Congress winning taxpayer money for terrorist regimes all over the globe, from Guatemala to Nigeria to Indonesia.

Well, if it’s Monday, it’s money here on Democracy Now!, and Charles Lewis is back with us, this time to talk about “The Torturers’ Lobby: How Human Rights-Abusing Nations Are Represented in Washington.” Charles Lewis is director of the Center for Public Integrity.

Why don’t you tell us about your report, “The Torturers’ Lobby,” and who some of these law firms are, the corporate lobbyists in Washington who represent these regimes?

CHARLES LEWIS: Sure. Well, we’ve done 19 investigative studies at the Center for Public Integrity. “The Torturers’ Lobby” was an attempt to look at how these human rights-abusing countries get their money, get their aid from U.S. taxpayers. And we found that there’s a whole array of law firms and lobbying firms in Washington that work with human rights-abusing countries and have no compunction doing so. And the study actually came out a few years ago, and many of the advisers to President Clinton were doing this kind of work with firms in town. It wasn’t just Clinton. I mean, this is a pervasive phenomenon. There were also aides to Bush doing the same thing. And these people haven’t exactly left town. So this phenomenon continues. And, you know, basically, human rights groups, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the State Department, which compiles human rights abuses, that’s, like, one segment of information. But very rarely does anyone look at how they get their money and who lobbies for them. And this study was, I think, the first time, and the only time, to my knowledge, that anyone’s ever looked at that element.

AMY GOODMAN: One of the most powerful corporate lobbyists in Washington is Tommy Boggs, brother of Cokie Roberts of ABC News and NPR. He’s with Patton Boggs & Blow. Can you talk about this law firm?

CHARLES LEWIS: Well, this law firm has been around for years. I think they now have changed their name to Patton Boggs. I don’t know what happened to Blow. And they have about 600-plus lawyers in their Washington office, and they represent all kinds of foreign governments. They also have hundreds and hundreds of Fortune 500 types of corporate clients in the country. Of course, Ron Brown used to be in that firm and had a corner office while he was Democratic Party chairman, has since moved on, of course, to the Clinton administration.

But in the context of this study, they represented some human rights-abusing countries back when — in the '80s, when Brown was deputy chairman of the Democratic Party, and he was also a partner at Patton Boggs. He represented Haiti when Baby Doc Duvalier was the leader there. And when someone pointed out the repressive human rights record of Duvalier, Brown said, “Well, I don't work for Duvalier. I work for the government of Haiti,” as though, you know, it’s a huge government down there. And so, anyway, this firm has done many interesting things over the years. In our study, one thing we noticed was their association with Guatemala and the money that they received and the things they did for them.

AMY GOODMAN: I was interested in your executive summary of the report. You talk about November '89, when Dianna Ortiz, the American nun teaching in Guatemala, was kidnapped and taken to a secret detention center, tortured and raped. A few months later, Michael DeVine, an American who was an innkeeper in rural Guatemala, was abducted, tortured and executed by members of the Guatemala security forces, now known to be, at least one of them, on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency, that Patton Boggs & Blow was there to clean up Guatemala's name, I guess, and to get money for them at this time — 

CHARLES LEWIS: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: — and specifically, actually, to do something about Michael DeVine. Is that right?

CHARLES LEWIS: That’s right. What is most interesting — yeah, they were assigned to prepare a status report on the DeVine murder, but basically to refurbish the image of the country in general, I think, is the key here. And whereas military aid and commercial arms sales were suspended to that country because the human rights record was so abysmal, nonetheless, the country got $91 million in U.S. aid. And Patton Boggs & Blow helped them get that, and they were paid for their services about $220,000, according to Justice Department Foreign Agent Registration Act records. So, not an impressive moment in Washington activities.

AMY GOODMAN: You mentioned Ron Brown, now, of course, the U.S. secretary of commerce, responsible for some of — well, spending probably the most money on pushing U.S. arms abroad. I was in Indonesia in November '94 when he was there with President Clinton for the APEC summit, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. And there Ron Brown clinched, signed off on a half a billion-dollar deal between Exxon and Indonesia — this at the time, of course, Indonesia is occupying East Timor illegally, has killed a third of the population there. In fact, right now, today in the news, two Timorese have taken refuge in the Polish Embassy in Jakarta, as seems to be the custom every week now, Timorese trying to escape from the repressive regime. How about Indonesia and the torturers' lobby in Washington?

CHARLES LEWIS: Well, basically, Indonesia was — called on Hill & Knowlton, one of the biggest firms in Washington. In fact, in our study, no firm received what we called blood money, more of it, than Hill & Knowlton. They represented seven of the most heinous abusers of human rights in the world, Indonesia being one of them. And the firm was paid $3 million in just the year, approximate year or so, that we looked at it for Indonesia. So, but Hill & Knowlton worked for China right after Tiananmen Square and Turkey, which gets $800 million a year in aid. I mean, this is a firm that has no compunction whatsoever working for human rights-abusing countries. This is not something that gives them the slightest pause.

AMY GOODMAN: Nigeria?

CHARLES LEWIS: Nigeria is a fascinating case, because — I don’t want to sound — I mean, back to Hill & Knowlton a second. One of the top aides to Hill & Knowlton was an adviser to the Clinton campaign. And Frank Mankiewicz, of course, was a former aide to Robert Kennedy and is well known in Washington as a sort of a prominent Democrat over the years, but — 

AMY GOODMAN: Former head of National Public Radio.

CHARLES LEWIS: Yeah, well, that’s right. But switching over to — Black, Manafort, Stone is a firm that’s been known for years in the Washington area, located across the river in Alexandria, Virginia, and they worked for Nigeria. Nigeria, despite its abysmal record, got $8 million in aid, and the firm that helped them get the aid got a million dollars. Now, the reason that’s intriguing is Paul Manafort, inside that firm, a longtime Reagan and Bush campaign operative, was in charge of all of their overseas activities. He represented several dubious human rights-abusing countries in Africa. And what is so interesting is, my understanding is that Manafort is going to be in charge of the Republican convention in San Diego, dubbed by Senator Dole as his — the person who will organize all of that. So, Manafort is still very active in Republican circles, and that firm continues to represent these kinds of nations.

AMY GOODMAN: Also, they represented, according to your report, Angola’s UNITA forces, set up by, or certainly supported by South Africa and the United States. We all know the name Savimbi.

CHARLES LEWIS: Right, exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: Do we see reporters covering these kind of issues, talking about these connections? It seems that there’s no history to these people who enter the campaigns.

CHARLES LEWIS: Well, I have to tell you, this drives me up the wall. When we — like I said before, we’ve put out 19 studies over the last five-plus years, and we we didn’t get very much press coverage for this. And I don’t understand exactly why. You know, well, I do a little bit.

In Washington, lobbying is considered part of the landscape. When Michael Deaver was indicted a few years ago, The Washington Post editorial said, “If you want to try to control influence peddling, you might as well try to bottle air.” In Washington, there’s just a sort of ho-hum attitude towards lobbying in general, meaning that what lobbyists do is seen as not so big a deal. That’s what they do. This is our industry. It’s a one-industry town. It’s either government or lobbying. And what’s the problem?

So that, for example, when we did another study, called “Under the Influence,” in 1992 and found that James Lake was working for the owners of BCCI, making a million dollars a year flying back and forth to Abu Dhabi while he was deputy chairman of the Bush campaign, this seemed noteworthy to us, to say the least. There were seven federal criminal grand jury investigations. And we pointed it out and — but up until that moment, several major newspapers, famous newspapers, the ones we all read, and — anyway, they all had the same documents from the Justice Department that we had, public records, and they didn’t think it was a story. They said, “Well, isn’t that what lobbyists do? They have clients.” And I said, “Well, no, this is a little different. I think the average American would be outraged if they knew this.”

And so, I went ahead, and we had the news conference. And fortunately, it caused a stir, and people thought it was interesting. And some news reporters who really are not so inured here — maybe they were out-of-towners that had only been here a year or two — they found it to be a big story. It went on the wires, and there were 40 or 50 reporters, and it caused a splash. The Bush campaign had to issue a statement back in '92. So, basically, the whole stance that I take when we do these is I pretend that I'm an out-of-towner when I look at this, and I could care less what reporters here think. I will find a way to get it outside the Beltway.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re listening to Chuck Lewis, who is head of the Center for Public Integrity. Before that, he was a producer at 60 Minutes and also at ABC. Is that right?

CHARLES LEWIS: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: So, did you know about these things before you started doing this kind of investigation? I mean, did you know about them when you were an investigative journalist?

CHARLES LEWIS: Well, I did. I mean, I covered — I covered the Justice Department for six years at ABC. But, I mean, when you’re doing that, you’re — I’m not defending the mainstream media here, but you are limited to big trials or big cases or the attorney general’s news conference and things like that, and these kind of items just don’t seem to make it on the radar screen. And I could — we could talk for days about all the stories I proposed that didn’t get covered, but I guess every journalist in America could almost do that. But I was aware of the landscape. I saw what was going on with lobbying.

My eyes were most opened, though, I must tell you, at 60 Minutes. My last story before I quit and started the center was a story about foreign lobbying. And I found that there were 10 aides to the Bush campaign and two or three to the Dukakis campaign in 1988 who were all making six-figure salaries working for foreign governments while they were advisers to presidential candidates. And then, I, of course, found trade officials, on Friday working for the U.S., Monday working for Tokyo or Hong Kong. And I thought, “What the heck is going on here?” And that really opened my eyes.

And the epiphany of all epiphanies was when Mike Wallace and I interviewed Elliot Richardson. And he was representing several overseas clients, Greek and Japanese and other interests. And we said — and this was at the time that there was apartheid in South Africa. I mean, things had not changed. Mandela was still in prison. And we said to Richardson on camera, “Is there anyone you would not work for?” And he said, “Well, I don’t know.” And I said, “Would you work for South Africa?” And he said, “Depends what they ask me to do.” And here’s the only man in U.S. history to hold four Cabinet positions, who, of course, refused to fire the Watergate prosecutor during the Saturday Night Massacre 20-some years ago — you know, a real icon to many people. And I thought, “This is now a lobbyist and a lawyer, and he will just about do anything for anybody.” And that is the ethos in Washington. That’s what people do here.

AMY GOODMAN: Any of these Dukakis aides, and at this point I’ll say also Bush aides, now aides and advisers to President Clinton, since he seems to choose from both the Republican and the Democratic Party?

CHARLES LEWIS: Right. Well, I mean, as I was mentioning earlier about how — Hill & Knowlton had several aides, and, of course, Brown had worked with Duvalier, who’s now the secretary of commerce. So, there are a number of people who were advisers to the campaign. Some of them stayed at the firms. It’s hard to leave a $400,000 or $500,000 salary and come in and make a mere $130,000. And so, but, I mean, this is a bipartisan phenomenon. We should really stress this. This has nothing to do with partisanship. It has to do with a mercenary culture where anything goes.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, many people said we have to talk about, for example, Ron Brown, his relationship to Haiti. This wasn’t just before he became commerce secretary, because, of course, while he was in the Clinton administration, he was close friends with many in the Haitian elite. And many felt that he was influencing President Clinton during the three years of the coup —

CHARLES LEWIS: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: — because his relations, his close friends, quite close friends, were those who were benefiting from the coup, and may well have been those who were supporting it.

CHARLES LEWIS: Right. Well, you know, relationships between lobbyists and their clients, I’m not convinced — and, of course, I don’t think at all that they end when they are sworn in. I mean, these are personal relationships that have been built up over many years. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have passed hands, from governments to law firms. And now these people, in some cases, are in the administration, or they’re close to U.S. senators and things. I mean, that’s how — Washington is a very incestuous place, and it’s really not all that big sometimes. It seems like everyone’s stepping all over everyone else here. And so, anyway, the idea of “The Torturers’ Lobby,” back to that, was to lay all this out. And many of our studies do that. The one about Buchanan and Larry Pratt, the “Under the Influence” reprise that we did a month ago, was an attempt, again, to lay out a scorecard of all the players. And so, I think there’s a need to do it. And if the press won’t do it in their normal daily function, they will cover information as it emerges from other organizations that do it.

AMY GOODMAN: I have to point out that Larry Pratt was actually — this is the man who worked with white Aryan groups and was the aide to Buchanan, was also on the list of contacts for the Second Amendment Coalition, this group that included the NRA and the ACLU in fighting the counterterrorism bill because of how it violates people’s constitutional rights. Pretty unusual bedfellows here.

CHARLES LEWIS: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: There was a piece in The Washington Post on Saturday, “Number of Lobbyists Who Register Doubles Under the New Law. Critics Say New Law Allows Many to Slip By.” Now, when this law on lobbyists and lobbyist disclosure was passed, it was heralded pretty universally as one that was going to finally let us know who’s lobbying for whom, when and how much they’re getting. But it doesn’t look like it’s quite the sea change that, for example, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan is talking about. They’re quoting him in the piece here.

CHARLES LEWIS: Right. Well, I didn’t see that article, but I know that that law is not a panacea. Here are several reasons why. I don’t think that they have beefed up any of their administrative help in terms of trying to get all these records, so there — and the enforcement power is not much. I mean, the Foreign Agent Registration Act alone, there were three GAO reports that said half the people don’t even register. So, I do think a lot of people probably get through the cracks.

But the other — well, we could talk for days about these records, but, for example, healthcare lobbying. We did a big, massive study in '94 looking at 660 groups doing healthcare and grassroots lobbying. You know, the big technique now, lobbyists have fallen in such disrepute in this country that the only way they can really effectively lobby is to have phony front group-type organizations or go out to the heartland and make it seem like there's real grassroots interest. Well, if they mount a 50-state grassroots campaign and spend $50 million to do it, that’s not lobbying under the new law. It’s not registered anywhere.

Another thing, there was $60 million spent by 40 groups with TV ads. Remember the Harry and Louise ads and — or Thelma. I don’t know. I get all these — Harry and Louise, yeah. And these ads were very, very effective, by any measure. And there is no registration of any TV advertising, which is becoming an increasing way to influence attitudes and lobby indirectly members of Congress. And so, there are lots of problems with this law.

The one good thing about the law, I think, is that it always bothered me that if Mitsubishi lobbied the White House, they would have to register as a foreign agent because they’re an overseas entity under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, but if Metropolitan Life lobbied the White House as a U.S. concern, there would be no records anywhere for any executive branch lobbying. This law did attempt to have a central repository for all this lobbying. It’s imperfect, but I do think it was probably a positive thing. It’s just no panacea.

AMY GOODMAN: Also, the law says that if a lawyer or a lobbyist — if 20% or less of their time is spent lobbying over a six-month period, they don’t have to register as a lobbyist. Well, I hope you come out with that new report, that new “Torturers’ Lobby,” to update us on who’s lobbying for whom, what’s happening now, how Indonesia and Guatemala and Nigeria are being represented, these terrorist regimes that kill their own people. But for now we have to say goodbye. Chuck Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity. If people want to get a copy of “The Torturers’ Lobby” or any of your other reports, like “Under the Influence,” about lobbyists, where do they call?

CHARLES LEWIS: 202-783-3900, our Washington office, Center for Public Integrity.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s 202…

CHARLES LEWIS: 783-3900.

AMY GOODMAN: And your email address? Your —

CHARLES LEWIS: Well, we have a website, www.essential.org/cpi,

AMY GOODMAN: And you can get from that the reports, as well.

CHARLES LEWIS: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: Chuck Lewis, director of Center for Public Integrity.

Coming up, Dennis Kucinich, running for Congress from Ohio. You’re listening to Democracy Now!