Swamp Watch: Saudi Arabia's Lobbyist Army

Hostile foreign governments have infiltrated the D.C. swamp. Even Saudi Arabia, whose state religion inspires ISIS, has an army of lobbyists doing their bidding. And what they want is often the opposite of what Americans want. We expose them on this Swamp Watch.

Swamp Watch: Saudi Arabia

Our DC swamp has been infiltrated by hostile foreign governments. Even Saudi Arabia, which supports the terrorism we are fighting, has its mercenaries

Adapted Transcript

The D.C. swamp has been infiltrated by foreign governments who want anything but the America First policy President Trump has talked about. Some of the world's worst regimes pay out millions to lobbyists to do their bidding. Saudi Arabia, which promotes the radical Islamic ideology behind ISIS, has armies of these mercenaries in Washington.
 
... And we're going to expose them on tonight's Swamp Watch.
 
With fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers and a vicious state religion, Saudi Arabia is more responsible than any other country for the terrorist threat we face today.
 
Here's how former secretary of state Hillary Clinton put it:
 
On August 14, 2014, she emailed John Podesta - yes him again - that we need to,
 
"Bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region."
 
Isn't it good to know she wanted to get tough on the Saudis?

Until, that is, she needed their money.
 
Between 1999 and 2014,  Saudi Arabia forked over up to 25 million dollars to the Clinton Foundation, with more millions from an affiliated group called "Friends of Saudi Arabia".
 
Did they give so generously because they believe in, say, fighting income inequality and empowering women...all while their own government is a feudal monarchy that even bans women from driving?
 
Give me a break.
 
Those donations were given to buy access to and curry favor with Hillary Clinton who they thought was going to be the next president. And they didn't stop there.
 
John Podesta's own lobbying firm, The Podesta Group, also takes money to lobby for the Saudis. In fact, it's just one of 29 lobbyists and lobbying firms we found that are currently registered to represent Saudi Arabia. And the issues they're pushing are the opposite of what Americans want. Their top priority was to block a law allowing the families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for international terrorism. Eventually, the bill passed, but only after Congress overrode President Obama's veto-- the only veto override of the eight-year Obama administration.

The Saudis use their vast oil money not just to lobby our government, but to promote Islamist ideology around the world. The basis of today's Islamist terrorism - for ISIS and other groups - is Saudi Arabia's state religion, an extreme and backward version of Islam known as Wahhabism. The Saudis have spent billions around the world building and operating mosques and religious schools--known as madrassas-- that preach Wahhabism.
 
According to a diplomatic cable sent by the American Consulate in Lahore, Pakistan...
 
"100 million U.S. dollars annually was making its way to... clerics in the region from missionary and Islamic charitable organizations in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab emirates ostensibly with the direct support of those governments."
 
That's 100 million dollars a year, just for one region in Pakistan!
 
But, the spending on this hateful ideology doesn't stop there... And, like the Soviets used propaganda during the Cold War, the Saudis use even more in the War on Terror. While the soviets spent 7 billion on communist propaganda throughout the entire twentieth century, Saudi Arabia has spent an estimated 100 billion dollars to promote Wahhabism around the world.

On top of propaganda, they're also spending their oil money on a brutal bombing campaign on their southern neighbor, Yemen... Leading to over 4 thousand civilian deaths and millions of people displaced.

Now, because of their lobbying, and lobbying from our own swampy military-industrial complex, we have armed the Saudis to the teeth through lucrative deals for weapons, fighter jets, radar systems, and more. Why are we getting involved in this foreign war that's causing chaos?

Some of our elected officials want to push back. Last month, Congressman Ro Khanna, a previous guest on our show, introduced amendments to do just that. He wanted to stop funding the refueling of Saudi aircraft, investigate potential war crimes, and put conditions in place before selling the Saudis air-to-ground missiles. But these amendments were ruled out of order.
 
Why? Here's what Congressman Khanna told me [Steve Hilton] in an email:

"Saudi Arabia has hired the former chair of the House Armed Services Committee as their top lobbyist. This helps explain why Saudi Arabia still has so much influence in our foreign policy. Clearly, it's not in the U.S. interest to intervene in Yemen. Yet, we can't even get a full House view on the issue and the amendments are ruled out of order."
 
That's right. The Saudis have hired former Congressman Buck McKeon, who once headed the House Armed Services Committee, to help ensure their bombers are refueled, that there won't be an investigation, and that the deadly munitions will keep flowing.
 
This is exactly what Donald Trump was elected to stop. But it's still going on. Republican lobbyist Richard Hohlt has made over 430 thousand dollars from the Saudi foreign ministry since this January to provide "advice on legislative and public affairs strategies." He says he also contacted Congressional offices on behalf of the Saudis to discuss an arms deal.
 
What's he doing now? He just joined the President's Commission on White House Fellowships.
 
In fact there is a slew of former Trump advisers whom the Saudis are courting. The day after the President's trip to Saudi Arabia was announced, their Interior Ministry hired the 'Sonoran Policy Group' and paid them 5.4 million dollars.
 
Sonoran has little prior experience representing foreign governments, but they do have close ties to the administration, including the political director of a pro-trump political action committee Stuart Jolly, the Chief of Staff for the Trump campaign in Michigan Jacob Daniels, and Robert Stryk, who represented former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

With Saudi Arabia spreading the exact same Islamist ideology we're fighting, are those ties that we want to have? Are these really the people we want to jump into bed with?
 
'America First' means draining the swamp of foreign lobbyists... And let's start with Saudi Arabia.