Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy - Eamon Javers [121]
FOX AND BENÖHR are willing to explain their industry openly to a reporter, but not everyone in the global intelligence business is equally willing to talk about what he does. Take Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who is the ruler of the fast-growing city-state of Dubai and the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates. He’s worth an estimated $18 billion, likes to race thoroughbred horses and camels, and owns the world’s biggest yacht, a glistening white, 530-foot behemoth called Dubai.
Sheikh Mo, as he’s known, has a firm staffed by CIA veterans on his payroll in Washington.
That fact is buried in obscure U.S government filings, so it has not been discovered by the media and the public. If it were widely known, it could be controversial. In 2006, the effort by a company called Dubai Ports World to buy a company that managed six American ports caused an uproar throughout the United States, in the mainstream media, in the blogosphere, and among the political elite. How could a company from the United Arab Emirates—a federation to which several of the 9/11 terrorists had ties—be given access to the American shipping infrastructure? Republican congresswoman Sue Myrick sent an angry letter to President George W. Bush that read in part, “Hell no!” Would politicians like Myrick be pleased to learn that Sheikh Mo had hired—through several cutouts—some of the most sophisticated CIA-trained talent available in the private sector?
It’s not clear what services these former CIA people offer to the ruler of Dubai, but their work on his behalf has left something of a paper trail in federal disclosure records. The documents are difficult to find, but they are the only clues in the mystery: the CIA veterans aren’t talking, and the embassy of the United Arab Emirates does not respond to an inquiry about the matter.
This case is particularly interesting, since it illustrates the way many private intelligence firms are hired. The entire industry is hidden from public view through the clever application of attorney-client privilege, aggressive use of nondisclosure agreements, and creation of elaborate cutout schemes.
Whenever an American company signs on to lobby the government on behalf of a foreign country, it has to file a document with the U.S. Department of Justice Foreign Agents Registration Unit. The law that gives the unit its authority was passed in 1938, and was designed to make life difficult for Nazi sympathizers working in the United States. In all the decades since, the Department of Justice has been accumulating registrations at its small facility in Washington.
Its offices are tucked into the first floor of a nondescript building just a block or so from the White House on New York Avenue. After pressing a buzzer to be let in, visitors enter a filing room overflowing with years of old papers, books, and directories. Three worn-looking computers sit on a table, available to any member of the public for a search through electronic copies of the files. Invariably, young paralegals from some of Washington’s high-powered law firms occupy these computers, searching the records for details to support ongoing litigation.
The documents they’re searching through typically include copies of any contracts signed by American companies working to advocate for foreign governments. They detail names of American officials the firms met with, and the dates and times of those contacts.
The disclosure forms show that the government-owned Dubai Holding (which, because Dubai is a monarchy, thus belongs to Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum) hired the American law firm DLA Piper to work on its behalf. The law firm in turn hired the public relations firm Levick Strategic Communications. And the PR firm hired TD International (TDI), a private intelligence firm that is based in Washington, D.C., and employs a number of CIA veterans.
The founder of TDI is William Green, who