By: Ben Freeman
Oct. 4, 2018
Oct. 4, 2018
How Saudi Money Keeps Washington at War in Yemen
It was May 2017. The
Saudis were growing increasingly nervous. For more than two years they had been
relying heavily on U.S. military support and bombs to defeat Houthi rebels in
Yemen. Now, the Senate was considering a bipartisan resolution to cut
off military aid and halt a big sale of American-made bombs to Saudi
Arabia. Fortunately for them, despite mounting evidence that the U.S.-backed,
supplied, and fueled air campaign in Yemen was targeting civilians,
the Saudi government turned out to have just the weapon needed to keep those
bombs and other kinds of aid coming their way: an army of lobbyists.
That year, their
forces in Washington included members of more than two dozen lobbying and
public relations firms. Key among them was Marc Lampkin, managing partner of
the Washington office of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck (BHFS), a company that
would be paid nearly half a million dollars by the Saudi government in 2017. Records from the Foreign Agents
Registration Act (FARA) show that Lampkin contacted Senate offices more than 20
times about that resolution, speaking, for instance, with the legislative
director for Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) on May 16, 2017. Perhaps coincidentally,
Lampkin reported making a $2,000 contribution to the senator’s political
action committee that very day. On June 13th, along with a majority of his
fellow senators, Scott voted to allow the Saudis to get their bombs. A
year later, the type of bomb authorized in that sale has reportedly been
used in air strikes that have killed civilians in Yemen.
