Palau News: Lobbyist in USA Scrutiny; Former President JT's Response to USA Uyghur Money Audit
The Lobbyist with a six-figure government job
WRITTEN BY ADMINISTRATOR
THURSDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2015 11:28
By ERIC LIPTON
New York Times, September 14, 2015 - WASHINGTON - In this city with a grand tradition of government officials who pass through the revolving door into a world of big paychecks, Jeffrey Farrow stands apart. While earning more than $100,000 a year as executive director of a tiny federal agency called the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, which has only one full-time federal employee, Mr. Farrow has simultaneously helped collect as much as $750,000 a year in lobbying fees. His clients have included the governments of Puerto Rico and the Republic of Palau, a tiny island nation in the western Pacific. Mr. Farrow was at once a federal government bureaucrat and lobbyist. The revolving door did not even have to spin.
He managed this feat while running one of dozens of agencies that can get lost in the vast United States government - this one responsible for identifying and helping preserve cemeteries and historic buildings in Eastern and Central Europe that are important to American Jews and others, including Orthodox Christians from Kosovo.
An agency staff member has alleged that Mr. Farrow handled some of his lobbying work while at the offices of the federal agency. And at times, his work for private clients has overlapped directly with his public duties.
“A bizarre tale,” said Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, in a letter he sent last month to Lesley Weiss, the chairwoman of the 30-year-old commission, asking her to explain Mr. Farrow’s dual roles. “This lobbyist used federal personnel and resources to run a profitable personal business advancing the interest of foreign agents.”
Mr. Farrow declined repeated requests for comment, and Ms. Weiss did not return calls seeking comment. Warren L. Miller, a former federal prosecutor from Virginia who served for over a decade as chairman of the commission, said in an interview that he had been unaware that Mr. Farrow was also working as a registered foreign agent - a type of lobbyist hired by a foreign government, like Palau.
But Mr. Miller, who still serves on the commission board after stepping down as chairman in 2012, said Mr. Farrow had done nothing wrong because he works as a contractor, first hired in 2001, rather than as a full-fledged federal employee, even with his title of executive director. “I don’t think it was improper or unethical or illegal in any way,” Mr. Miller said. He added that during Mr. Farrow’s tenure, the agency had helped preserve dozens of cemeteries and other important historic and cultural sites.
Experts in government ethics and lobbying law said that the different hats Mr. Farrow has simultaneously worn - as a lobbyist, foreign agent and executive director of a federal agency - are at minimum highly unusual. “Whether or not there is a legal violation here, you do have a mixing of roles that I have certainly never seen before,” said Caleb P. Burns, a partner at Wiley Rein, a Washington law firm, who specializes in lobbying and ethics laws. “Someone burrowed so deeply in the government and yet at the same time engaging in lobbying and representing a foreign government - it is pretty brazen.”
Mr. Farrow took home about 16 percent of the commission’s annual budget in personal compensation, given his salary of at least $104,000 a year, even though he was expected to work for the agency for only eight to 20 hours a week, according to a report on the agency by the General Services Administration’s inspector general, completed in 2013 but never made public. A copy of the report was provided to The New York Times.
Mr. Farrow, as a result of his different jobs, was often working with the State Department and members of Congress in his official capacity - as the agency urged foreign governments to preserve cemeteries and other historic sites - while he was also making appeals to these same officials on behalf of his lobbying clients. For the government of Palau, he described himself as a “special adviser,” foreign agent lobbying records filed with the Department of Justice show.
As a representative of Palau, Mr. Farrow frequently contacted the State Department, which recently released more than 20 emails between Mr. Farrow and Hillary Rodham Clinton and her top aides while she was secretary of state. Mr. Farrow tried to press Mrs. Clinton and her staff to sign off on a new agreement that would offer the country more assistance than had been planned. “Palau offended by U.S. positions,” said one email Mr. Farrow wrote to Mrs. Clinton in 2009, as he helped Palau push for the new agreement, before explaining to Mrs. Clinton in detail the government’s objections. Mrs. Clinton sent that email to Jake Sullivan, one of her top foreign policy advisers, saying: “Pls review, do some recon outreach and advise what, if anything, we should do.”
The outcome clearly pleased Mr. Farrow, who had also served on Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign before she joined the Obama administration. A year later, when a new deal was signed setting aside additional federal funds for Palau, Mr. Farrow wrote to Mrs. Clinton: “Thanks for all that you did. It obtained U.S. objectives as well as resulted in substantially greater fairness for a former territory.” Mr. Farrow’s work on behalf of Puerto Rico intensified - and his lobbying fees increased - as the island’s recent financial crisis worsened. After first working directly for the government of Puerto Rico, in the last two years Mr. Farrow has been part of a lobbying team that as of July had been paid $2 million by three nonprofit groups advocating on behalf of the island, including the Puerto Rico Statehood Council.
At that time, Mr. Farrow’s two worlds came together. Records show that a nonprofit group created to help support the heritage commission’s work donated money to a hospital and a community college in Palau. The questions about Mr. Farrow’s varied roles came to light after the agency’s only full-time employee, Katarina Ryan, said Mr. Farrow routinely used the agency’s office to conduct his lobbying work, paid himself an unauthorized bonus with federal funds, and used federal funds to buy subscriptions to publications like Congressional Quarterly and the Leadership Directories, to help him with his lobbying practice. Ms. Ryan, the agency’s project manager, is on leave after raising questions about Mr. Farrow’s conduct.
An investigation by the inspector general from the General Services Administration concluded that while Mr. Farrow may have handled some of his lobbying duties while at the agency’s offices, he had a personal laptop and cellphone, so “there was insufficient evidence to show any violation by Mr. Farrow.”
The Senate Homeland Security committee has asked the agency to address the allegations. The commission, in a statement, said the allegations had “been found to be unsubstantiated, factual misunderstandings and factually incorrect,” noting that it would respond to the Senate request later this month. Mr. Johnson, the Wisconsin senator, in a statement released by his office Friday, said the commission, despite its worthwhile mission, was an example of what is wrong with government. “This relatively tiny agency is a classic example of the dysfunction and waste that typify far too much of the federal government,” he said. “Established with the best of intentions to memorialize the horrors of 20th-century genocides, the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad did little to accomplish that goal but was instead used to enrich a lobbyist.”
http://islandtimes.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1945%3Athe-lobbyist-with-a-six-figure-government-job&catid=14%3Aregional&Itemid=1
---------------------------------------------------
JT says funds were spent lawfully for Uighurs
WRITTEN BY ADMINISTRATOR
THURSDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2015 11:32
Asked to comment on the performance audit on Uighur resettlement grants, former President Johnson Toribiong explained the position of his administration. He said every penny of the funds provided by the United States Government for the temporary resettlement of the Uighurs in Palau was spent for the sole benefit of the Uighurs in accordance with the terms of the bilateral agreement between Palau and the United States. According to him, the Uighur funds were not subjected to the procurement laws as such funds were not grants to Palau, but fiduciary funds for the Uighurs. He also pointed out that the manner in which they were expended was also approved by the Attorney General.
Whether the manner in which the Uighur funds were spent was lawful or ethical is presently under judicial review from the case filed against Toribiong and former Vice President Kerai Mariur on March 6, 2012. The case was filed by President Tommy E. Remengesau, Jr., then a Senator along with Senators Camsek Chin, Surangel Whipps, Jr., Hokkons Baules and Reyonold Oiloch.
Toribiong said the expenditure of public funds for the Uighurs under RPPL No. 9-7 were made by the current administration. He said the resettlement of the Uighurs in Palau from Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility in Cuba was indeed a controversial subject which placed Palau under intense international media attention and strong objection from the People's Republic of China.
Toribong noted that Palau was charged with the obligation to resettle the 6 Uighurs in Palau and to treat them in accordance with standards set forth in the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment. According to Toribiong, the foremost concern about their (Uighurs) resettlement in Palau was their security and safety. Toribiong said these funds were spent to first to guarantee the safety and security of the Uighurs and then to meet their daily needs and exigencies of their demands under the pressure of time imposed by the extraordinary circumstances of their resettlement in Palau.
While in Palau, their number increased from 6 to 17 when their families joined them. Except for the accidental death of a son of one of the Uighurs couples, their temporary stay in Palau was safe and secure and without any complaint from any of them nor the United States Government.
Toribiong said that during their stay here, Palau government officials engaged in regular consultations with US officials from the United States Embassy until they were all re-transferred to their final places of resettlement.
http://islandtimes.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1950%3Ajt-says-funds-were-spent-lawfully-for-uighurs&catid=8%3Alatest-news&Itemid=1
WRITTEN BY ADMINISTRATOR
THURSDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2015 11:28
By ERIC LIPTON
New York Times, September 14, 2015 - WASHINGTON - In this city with a grand tradition of government officials who pass through the revolving door into a world of big paychecks, Jeffrey Farrow stands apart. While earning more than $100,000 a year as executive director of a tiny federal agency called the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, which has only one full-time federal employee, Mr. Farrow has simultaneously helped collect as much as $750,000 a year in lobbying fees. His clients have included the governments of Puerto Rico and the Republic of Palau, a tiny island nation in the western Pacific. Mr. Farrow was at once a federal government bureaucrat and lobbyist. The revolving door did not even have to spin.
He managed this feat while running one of dozens of agencies that can get lost in the vast United States government - this one responsible for identifying and helping preserve cemeteries and historic buildings in Eastern and Central Europe that are important to American Jews and others, including Orthodox Christians from Kosovo.
An agency staff member has alleged that Mr. Farrow handled some of his lobbying work while at the offices of the federal agency. And at times, his work for private clients has overlapped directly with his public duties.
“A bizarre tale,” said Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, in a letter he sent last month to Lesley Weiss, the chairwoman of the 30-year-old commission, asking her to explain Mr. Farrow’s dual roles. “This lobbyist used federal personnel and resources to run a profitable personal business advancing the interest of foreign agents.”
Mr. Farrow declined repeated requests for comment, and Ms. Weiss did not return calls seeking comment. Warren L. Miller, a former federal prosecutor from Virginia who served for over a decade as chairman of the commission, said in an interview that he had been unaware that Mr. Farrow was also working as a registered foreign agent - a type of lobbyist hired by a foreign government, like Palau.
But Mr. Miller, who still serves on the commission board after stepping down as chairman in 2012, said Mr. Farrow had done nothing wrong because he works as a contractor, first hired in 2001, rather than as a full-fledged federal employee, even with his title of executive director. “I don’t think it was improper or unethical or illegal in any way,” Mr. Miller said. He added that during Mr. Farrow’s tenure, the agency had helped preserve dozens of cemeteries and other important historic and cultural sites.
Experts in government ethics and lobbying law said that the different hats Mr. Farrow has simultaneously worn - as a lobbyist, foreign agent and executive director of a federal agency - are at minimum highly unusual. “Whether or not there is a legal violation here, you do have a mixing of roles that I have certainly never seen before,” said Caleb P. Burns, a partner at Wiley Rein, a Washington law firm, who specializes in lobbying and ethics laws. “Someone burrowed so deeply in the government and yet at the same time engaging in lobbying and representing a foreign government - it is pretty brazen.”
Mr. Farrow took home about 16 percent of the commission’s annual budget in personal compensation, given his salary of at least $104,000 a year, even though he was expected to work for the agency for only eight to 20 hours a week, according to a report on the agency by the General Services Administration’s inspector general, completed in 2013 but never made public. A copy of the report was provided to The New York Times.
Mr. Farrow, as a result of his different jobs, was often working with the State Department and members of Congress in his official capacity - as the agency urged foreign governments to preserve cemeteries and other historic sites - while he was also making appeals to these same officials on behalf of his lobbying clients. For the government of Palau, he described himself as a “special adviser,” foreign agent lobbying records filed with the Department of Justice show.
As a representative of Palau, Mr. Farrow frequently contacted the State Department, which recently released more than 20 emails between Mr. Farrow and Hillary Rodham Clinton and her top aides while she was secretary of state. Mr. Farrow tried to press Mrs. Clinton and her staff to sign off on a new agreement that would offer the country more assistance than had been planned. “Palau offended by U.S. positions,” said one email Mr. Farrow wrote to Mrs. Clinton in 2009, as he helped Palau push for the new agreement, before explaining to Mrs. Clinton in detail the government’s objections. Mrs. Clinton sent that email to Jake Sullivan, one of her top foreign policy advisers, saying: “Pls review, do some recon outreach and advise what, if anything, we should do.”
The outcome clearly pleased Mr. Farrow, who had also served on Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign before she joined the Obama administration. A year later, when a new deal was signed setting aside additional federal funds for Palau, Mr. Farrow wrote to Mrs. Clinton: “Thanks for all that you did. It obtained U.S. objectives as well as resulted in substantially greater fairness for a former territory.” Mr. Farrow’s work on behalf of Puerto Rico intensified - and his lobbying fees increased - as the island’s recent financial crisis worsened. After first working directly for the government of Puerto Rico, in the last two years Mr. Farrow has been part of a lobbying team that as of July had been paid $2 million by three nonprofit groups advocating on behalf of the island, including the Puerto Rico Statehood Council.
At that time, Mr. Farrow’s two worlds came together. Records show that a nonprofit group created to help support the heritage commission’s work donated money to a hospital and a community college in Palau. The questions about Mr. Farrow’s varied roles came to light after the agency’s only full-time employee, Katarina Ryan, said Mr. Farrow routinely used the agency’s office to conduct his lobbying work, paid himself an unauthorized bonus with federal funds, and used federal funds to buy subscriptions to publications like Congressional Quarterly and the Leadership Directories, to help him with his lobbying practice. Ms. Ryan, the agency’s project manager, is on leave after raising questions about Mr. Farrow’s conduct.
An investigation by the inspector general from the General Services Administration concluded that while Mr. Farrow may have handled some of his lobbying duties while at the agency’s offices, he had a personal laptop and cellphone, so “there was insufficient evidence to show any violation by Mr. Farrow.”
The Senate Homeland Security committee has asked the agency to address the allegations. The commission, in a statement, said the allegations had “been found to be unsubstantiated, factual misunderstandings and factually incorrect,” noting that it would respond to the Senate request later this month. Mr. Johnson, the Wisconsin senator, in a statement released by his office Friday, said the commission, despite its worthwhile mission, was an example of what is wrong with government. “This relatively tiny agency is a classic example of the dysfunction and waste that typify far too much of the federal government,” he said. “Established with the best of intentions to memorialize the horrors of 20th-century genocides, the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad did little to accomplish that goal but was instead used to enrich a lobbyist.”
http://islandtimes.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1945%3Athe-lobbyist-with-a-six-figure-government-job&catid=14%3Aregional&Itemid=1
---------------------------------------------------
JT says funds were spent lawfully for Uighurs
WRITTEN BY ADMINISTRATOR
THURSDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER 2015 11:32
Asked to comment on the performance audit on Uighur resettlement grants, former President Johnson Toribiong explained the position of his administration. He said every penny of the funds provided by the United States Government for the temporary resettlement of the Uighurs in Palau was spent for the sole benefit of the Uighurs in accordance with the terms of the bilateral agreement between Palau and the United States. According to him, the Uighur funds were not subjected to the procurement laws as such funds were not grants to Palau, but fiduciary funds for the Uighurs. He also pointed out that the manner in which they were expended was also approved by the Attorney General.
Whether the manner in which the Uighur funds were spent was lawful or ethical is presently under judicial review from the case filed against Toribiong and former Vice President Kerai Mariur on March 6, 2012. The case was filed by President Tommy E. Remengesau, Jr., then a Senator along with Senators Camsek Chin, Surangel Whipps, Jr., Hokkons Baules and Reyonold Oiloch.
Toribiong said the expenditure of public funds for the Uighurs under RPPL No. 9-7 were made by the current administration. He said the resettlement of the Uighurs in Palau from Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility in Cuba was indeed a controversial subject which placed Palau under intense international media attention and strong objection from the People's Republic of China.
Toribong noted that Palau was charged with the obligation to resettle the 6 Uighurs in Palau and to treat them in accordance with standards set forth in the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment. According to Toribiong, the foremost concern about their (Uighurs) resettlement in Palau was their security and safety. Toribiong said these funds were spent to first to guarantee the safety and security of the Uighurs and then to meet their daily needs and exigencies of their demands under the pressure of time imposed by the extraordinary circumstances of their resettlement in Palau.
While in Palau, their number increased from 6 to 17 when their families joined them. Except for the accidental death of a son of one of the Uighurs couples, their temporary stay in Palau was safe and secure and without any complaint from any of them nor the United States Government.
Toribiong said that during their stay here, Palau government officials engaged in regular consultations with US officials from the United States Embassy until they were all re-transferred to their final places of resettlement.
http://islandtimes.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1950%3Ajt-says-funds-were-spent-lawfully-for-uighurs&catid=8%3Alatest-news&Itemid=1