Incumbent Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo remains under international pressure to leave office after refusing to concede disputed elections last month. A delegation of heads of state from Benin, Sierra Leone and Cape Verde is traveling to the Ivory Coast today to deliver an ultimatum for Gbagbo to leave office or face removal by force. Opposition leader Alassane Ouattara has been widely recognized as the winner of the election, but Gbagbo claims the vote was rigged. Gbagbo’s security forces have been accused of orchestrating some 200 deaths, hundreds of arrests, dozens of cases of disappearances and torture in recent weeks. Gbagbo has hired prominent lobbyist Lanny Davis to represent him in Washington. A former White House special counsel under President Clinton, Davis’s recent clients include Ecuadorian Guinea dictator Teodoro Obiang as well as key supporters of the 2009 coup in Honduras. In a recent interview with CNN International, Davis was questioned about his pledge to drop Gbagbo as a client if there’s credible proof of human rights abuses under Gbagbo’s watch.

Hala Gorani: “Have you read the U.N. findings that they have substantiated that arbitrary arrests have been committed, torture, dozens of cases of torture, ill treatment and enforced disappearances of people over the past one week? Does that not constitute proof? I’m just asking if you believe in that report.”

Lanny Davis: “Does it constitute proof for you when you read a U.N. report?”

Hala Gorani: “No, I’m asking you if it constitutes proof for you.”

Lanny Davis: “I’m not sure who’s” —

Hala Gorani: “What more would you need in order to be convinced that, potentially?”

Lanny Davis: “I’m not sure who’s doing the interviewing. I would take very seriously that U.N. report. I’d like to — I’ve read it. I’d like to see the substantiation. I’d like to see who wrote it. I know that there have been U.N. reports concerning Israel that have been completely discredited as biased. I’d like to know who’s writing the report. And I certainly take it very seriously. If that report is true, of course I could not defend atrocities and human rights abuses.”