Lobbyist for genocide denialist Turkey should donate earnings to Armenians
By Harut Sassounian
Former Cong. Bob Livingston published a commentary in the Wall Street Journal last week asking outgoing U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to apologize for investigating the Livingston Group, a lobbying firm that was paid millions of dollars by the Government of Turkey to deny the Armenian Genocide and block its acknowledgment by the U.S. Congress.
Livingston accused Garland of being “a tool in the Democratic Party’s strategy of misusing the Justice Department to visit injustice on innocent people with differing political views.” Livingston was a Republican congressman from 1977 to 1999. He was slated to become the Speaker of the House, but resigned after the revelation of his extramarital affair. Subsequently, he formed and headed the Livingston Group for 25 years.
Livingston wrote in his commentary that “in 2022 two FBI agents came to my home in New Orleans and questioned me [for 2.5 hours] about incidents involving our representation of an international client in 2018.” The FBI agents presented “a search warrant for all my company’s records related to their questions.” The next day, the FBI informed him that he was “the target of felony charges.”
Livingston claimed that in December 2023 an FBI agent interviewed one of his employees who “was scared to death. He went to bed on Dec. 31, 2023, and didn’t wake up the next day.” Livingston wrote that “every day and night for 20 months, I lived with the possibility that the hammer could drop at any moment. Everything I worked for would be tarnished. My firm would collapse, my employees would lose their jobs, all of us would be ruined in the press, and I could go to prison.”
Livingston claimed that he and his firm were “innocent of all charges…. We spent incredible amounts of money on legal counsel, more than three times what we earned by representing the client at issue. Our attorneys prepared an 88-page brief rebutting all charges. They succeeded in backing prosecutors down, but I am convinced the department’s actions were political and malicious, targeting me as a lobbyist who has supported Donald Trump and been critical of President Biden…. The statute of limitations expired on our case in November, and prosecutors have said they are no longer interested in pursuing charges.”
Rather than being satisfied that the charges against him and his firm were dropped, Livingston went on to claim that “members of the Trump administration and Mr. Trump himself have been hounded and arrested. They’ve had their lives ruined for minor white-collar infractions. Mr. Trump has prevailed over attempts to destroy him, but others have been less fortunate.” Livingston conveniently forgot that Trump was convicted of sexual abuse and 34 felonies, becoming the first U.S. President who is a convicted criminal.
In order to put Livingston’s complaint in context, let us learn a little more about this man and see who should apologize to whom.
The New York Times, in an article published on October 17, 2007, titled: “Turkey’s Man in the Lobbies of Capitol Hill,” provided a partial list of Livingston firm’s sinister activities on behalf of genocide denialist Turkey for millions of dollars.
The Times described Livingston as “the main lobbyist for Turkey in blocking Congressional efforts to pass an Armenian genocide resolution. After succeeding twice before [in 2000 and 2004] — and collecting more than $12 million in fees for his firm, the Livingston Group — he is pushing once again for his client…. He escorted Turkish dignitaries to Capitol Hill to warn that the resolution threatened to destroy a strong Iraq war alliance.”
“A surge of defections by [House] members who backed the resolution showed that Mr. Livingston’s high-powered effort was gaining momentum,” the Times reported. “Mr. Livingston has showered money on House and Senate members, the National Republican Congressional Committee and other political causes. He and his firm gave more than $200,000 in campaign donations in the last election cycle, records show.… The issue has pitted Turkey’s money and high-placed connections against a persistent and emotional campaign by Armenian-American citizens’ groups,” the Times wrote.
To leave no stone unturned, the Turkish government had also recruited the “former Cong. Stephen J. Solarz whose firm got $165,000 this summer lobbying for Turkey under an arrangement with Mr. Livingston.” Furthermore, Turkey hired “another prominent lobbyist, Richard A. Gephardt, of Missouri, the former House majority leader and a Democrat” who had co-sponsored the Genocide Resolution while he was a House member. His firm, DLA Piper, signed a year-long lobbying contract with Turkey for $1.2 million. Just in the 12 months beginning in August 2005, Turkey spent $3.2 million on lobbyists and public relations firms.
The Livingston group also lobbied for Azerbaijan, Congo and the Cayman Islands. “More than a quarter of the firm’s income, which has totaled more than $71 million, has come from foreign clients, records show,” the Times article revealed.
Rather than asking Attorney General Garland to apologize, Livingston is the one who should apologize to the global Armenian community for spreading and profiting from his heinous lies denying the Armenian Genocide. Livingston should donate to Armenian-American organizations all $12 million his firm earned from Turkey to right the wrongs he and his firm committed.
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