The Yemen Civil War, Russian Oil and Corruption Within the US Government

This story may sound like something from a bad Hollywood blockbuster, involving corrupt lobbyists and international schemes, but it is real and happened just a few years ago. The men at the centre of this debacle are Barry Bennet and Douglas Watts. Between them, they possess decades of lobbying experience and have connections to numerous politicians and governmental organizations. Watts is a former Presidential consultant and the founder of his own PR company. Bennet oversees two lobbying firms in Washington D.C., Avenue Strategies and Avenue Strategies Global. Additionally, he was a key advisor to Donald Trump during his presidential campaigns. These two men played a crucial role in a plot to undermine a US alliance with other nations. When lobbyists and advisors take on work for foreign nations, they are required to register under FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act. This organization, established in the 1930s, aims to increase transparency in political decision-making, making it more difficult for foreign nations to influence US policy. However, Bennet and Watts did not make such disclosures.

Lobbyists cannot make a difference without a politician to influence, and in this case, it was Kansas Governor Jeff Coyler. With our American actors established, a key player is currently missing in this story: What foreign government is paying our Foreign Agent Lobbyists? It was Qatar, specifically the money came from the Qatari Embassy in the United States.

The corruption issue began in 2017 when Yemen was in crisis. The country was embroiled in a brutal civil war between the Yemeni government and the Houthi Movement. The Houthis are an anti-West terror organization seeking to sever Yemen's ties with the USA, Israel, and any other nation aligned with the West. The group was galvanized by US activities in the Middle East, specifically its invasion of Iraq in 2003. Since the 1990s, the Houthi Movement has been active in perpetrating attacks in Yemen. In the 2010s, these attacks escalated to the point where the Houthis had occupied a large section of Yemen.

While Western nations opposed the Houthis, in the Islamic realm, opinions were divided. Conservative nations like Iran and Syria, which had similar feelings toward the West and Israel, supported the Houthis. On the other hand, nations with allegiances to the West, such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, stood in staunch opposition to the Houthis. This divide turned the Yemen Civil War into a proxy war among Muslim states, with each side receiving financial support from sympathetic nations. Saudi Arabia led efforts to ensure the Yemeni national Government remained supported and internationally recognized. Qatar was one such nation in this council. However, relations between Qatar and Saudi Arabia were far from perfect, as they were political rivals. They had backed differing sides in the Second Libyan Civil War in 2014, and the Syrian Civil War, and had other disputes, including Qatari-owned media company Al Jazeera's criticism of Saudi Arabia. Al-Jazeera would be a useful asset for the Qatari Government, especially concerning the Houthi Movement. Qatar used its media resources to shift the perception of the Houthis from a terror group to that of a freedom fighter organization. Such portrayals, coupled with continued financial assistance by Qatar, angered Saudi Arabia and other council members. In June 2017, Saudi Arabia and all other council members cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, including restricting their air and sea space to Qatari vehicles.

Saudi Arabian media organizations began accusing Qatar of funding terror organizations and openly criticizing the United States. Such negative attention by its allies in the Middle East made the US focus on Qatar. Fearing repercussions for its expulsion from the anti-Houthi coalition, Qatar decided to pay US lobbyists to help them from within.

Between 2017 and 2018, Qatar paid Avenue Strategies, owned by Bennet, $3 million, along with plans to improve relations between the US and Qatar. Subsequent payments of $250,000 were also made to Bennet's companies by the Qataris. Funds from the initial payments were used by Bennet and Watts to establish an organization known as 'Yemen CrisisWatch.' The sole purpose of this organization was to undermine Saudi Arabia and the UAE by strengthening ties with the US. Around this time, then-Lieutenant Governor Colyer was briefing fellow congressmen on the security crisis in Yemen, displaying the logos and graphics of Yemen CrisisWatch. Colyer, preparing to run for the Governorship of Kansas in 2018 and accepting donations, received $4000 from Bennet's Avenue Strategies on December 18th, 2017, toward his campaign fund. The use of such logos in his presentation implies that he was in contact with Bennet and Watts long before those donations were made. It was clear that Yemen CrisisWatch's main purpose was to reach out to as many influential individuals as possible. Californian Televangelist Robert Schuller was also contacted by the organization, writing two op-ed pieces echoing the group's message.

He wrote:

"I was recently asked to become ambassador to Yemen CrisisWatch, a new organisation that seeks to raise awareness about the country. I agreed without hesitation. As a follower of Jesus, I have preached throughout my career- on television, on radio, and at churches- that we must help others who languish in fear and hopelessness".

This Has Happened Before

This would not be the only time Avenue Strategies, led by Bennet, would be linked to not registering as a foreign agent. This story had occurred before, but the men involved had managed to avoid prosecution. In 2017, Corey Lewandowski, another founder of Avenue Strategies and Trump's former campaign manager, lobbied for an American branch of a Venezuelan oil company called Citgo. Citgo paid Avenue Strategies $25,000 a month to establish connections with Trump's closest confidants and to dissuade Congress from imposing economic sanctions on Venezuela. At that time, Venezuela, a Russian ally, was in a fierce diplomatic dispute with the US. Additionally, Venezuela faced intense media scrutiny for its role in state-backed drug and human trafficking. Rumours circulated that Russia was in talks to purchase Citgo from its parent company in Venezuela. Citgo was desperate to cleanse its reputation among US government officials, and Avenue Strategies aimed to accomplish this. Once again, these connections weren't formally disclosed to the relevant authorities. Barry Bennet was also involved in this scandal when he stated that paperwork about the Citgo deal would be submitted on Wednesday, February 22nd.

When these documents weren't submitted, eyebrows were raised. Meanwhile, Trump promised to eliminate the influence of special interest groups in D.C., but his closest advisors were illegally lobbying. The situation brought nothing but embarrassment to Trump, Bennet, and Lewandowski. Soon, formal complaints were made to the Department of Justice by watchdog groups. Further investigation found that Bennet and Lewandowski used their Citgo lobbying money to establish another organization called Washington East West Political Strategies. Through this new organization, documents were discovered showing that they offered clients meetings with President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. These documents are believed to have been used when reaching out to potential clients in Eastern Europe. The situation worsened when it was found that Citgo had donated $500,000 to Donald Trump's inaugural committee, despite never making a political donation before. Bennet denied all these claims, stating that, although Avenue Strategies had stakes in Washington East West Political Strategies, they were not aware of these documents. He blamed the third owner of Washington East West, an Azerbaijani oil tycoon and businessman, who Bennet says created and distributed the documents without his knowledge. When pressed about Washington East West and these business dealings, Bennet announced that the company would be dissolved. The only issue was that other Avenue Strategy-affiliated lobbying companies operated in other areas such as the Middle East. Bennet did not comment on whether these would be shut down.

Concerning the business dealings with Citgo, further investigations found that the Russian government-owned oil company Rosneft was on the brink of taking over Citgo, causing concern among many Congress members. Citgo had three refineries in the US, as well as three major pipelines. Rosneft had given a loan to Citgo's parent company, the Venezuelan government-owned oil company PDVSA. As collateral, PDVSA had offered 49.9% of their company stock. Venezuela was experiencing one of its worst economic crises, and experts predicted they would not be able to pay it back in time. A bipartisan group of Senators wrote a letter to Trump's Secretary of the Treasury, Steve Mnuchin, expressing their fears about a Russian government-owned company having so much power over the US's energy production. The controversy reached a fevered pitch, and everyone was looking at Avenue Strategies, whose initial lack of paperwork filing had uncovered Citgo's potential buyout by Russia and the extremely close links between foreign agents and the President.

Bennet had previously stated that he would not lobby against US interests; clearly, he did not mean that. He stated that if Rosneft acquired Citgo, then Avenue Strategies would resign from the contract. He also doubled down, stating that Citgo was based in Texas and was an American company, despite being technically owned by a foreign government. Bennet shirked responsibility by stating that Avenue Strategies was subcontracted by VantageKnight, a Democrat-linked lobbying company. Documents revealed that VantageKnight had contracted Avenue Strategies for another lobbying job. In addition, VantageKnight was paid $270,000 to lobby for Citgo for the first three months of 2017, focusing on voiding possible sanctions and restrictions on US energy policy. So after all of this, where did it leave Bennet, Lewandowski, and Avenue Strategies? Well, the smoke kicked up by this whole controversy seemingly allowed them to avoid any punishment. Trump's presidency was already marred by talks of Russian collusion, and this foreign agent issue didn't help, but Avenue Strategies saw no major setback or punishment for their role in lobbying for other countries. In fact, Lewandowski received a major promotion to the advisory board of the Pentagon.

They got caught

The tactic of using lobbying money to establish a new organization to work through is clearly a favourite of Avenue Strategies. Yemen CrisisWatch and East West Washington Political Strategies are just two such organizations. This time, Avenue Strategies wasn't able to escape punishment for being undisclosed foreign agents. Soon after Yemen CrisisWatch began to ramp up its operations, the Department of Justice began to investigate. Promptly, the Yemen CrisisWatch Twitter and website were deleted. Bennet and Watts were brought in for deposition by the Department of Justice and FBI. Both men entered Deferred Prosecution Agreements. For Bennet, he consented to two charges of falsifying, concealing, and covering up material facts from the FARA Unit. In addition, he was charged with making false statements and material omissions in FARA filings. For this, Bennet will face a fine of $100,000. Watts consented to three counts of acting as an agent of a foreign principal without registering under FARA and making false statements to the FBI. He would be fined $25,000. The punishments for these men are measly. They openly accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes millions, just to be fined nothing close to that. This will do nothing to discourage or prevent this in the future. The Department of Justice had failed once to punish these same men for doing this, and then when they did, they gave them punishments so weak that it likely wouldn't change anything.

Below is the Department of Justice's description of events. They kept the countries and companies involved anonymous. In this version, I will replace the pseudonyms with the actual names of the actors involved.

In 2017, Bennett signed a contract for Avenue Strategies to perform lobbying services for the embassy of Qatar. As part of his lobbying strategy on behalf of Qatar and for and in the interest of Qatar, Bennett covertly operated Yemen CrisisWatch, a Limited Liability Company (LLC) founded by Watts at Bennett’s direction. As directed by Bennett and managed by Watts, Yemen CrisisWatch ran a public relations campaign designed to cast one of Qatar’s rivals, Saudi Arabia, in a negative light for its conduct, and thereby to improve Qatar’s standing with the U.S. government relative to this rival.

 Qatar paid Bennett’s Avenue Strategies $2.1 million between September 2017 and December 2017 for lobbying services, and approximately 27% of those funds (i.e., approximately $773,000) financed the operations of Yemen CrisisWatch. In return, Yemen CrisisWatch conducted a social media campaign (the Yemen CrisisWatch Twitter), published opinion articles in major newspapers (The Televangelist Op-Ed), produced a documentary that was distributed through a national television network, sent direct mailings to American citizens, and lobbied Congress (Through Governor Colyer) and former President Trump.

Yemen CrisisWatch took credit for directing 3,000 phone calls to members of the U.S. House of Representatives encouraging them to discontinue U.S. involvement in a coalition of  Qatar’s rivals. The House eventually voted overwhelmingly to “deauthorize” U.S. involvement with the coalition.

            Neither Watts nor Yemen CrisisWatch was registered under FARA.