LATEST UPDATES Last updated on May 1, 2020
US Mission of the Syrian Democratic Council
(for Syrian Democratic Council)
Registered: Jan. 2018
2018 receipts: Approximately $96,000-$120,000
NEW Related news
The US Mission of the Syrian Democratic Council, which represents the political wing of the Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, is touting a new report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom that called on the US government to “exert significant pressure on Turkey to provide a timeline for its withdrawal from Syria” and “expand US engagement with and assistance to” the Kurdish-led autonomous administration in northeast Syria.
Ballard Partners
(for Citizens for a Secure and Safe America)
Hired: Dec. 2019
NEW Q1 domestic lobbying filing
Hawkish Syria advocacy group Citizens for a Secure and Safe America paid Ballard Partners $50,000 in the first quarter; the firm lobbied the White House on Syria policy.
Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting
(for Citizens for a Secure and Safe America)
Hired: Aug. 2019
NEW Q1 domestic lobbying filing (termination)
Former Rep. Luke Messer and his firm, Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath (formerly Faegre Baker Daniels) stopped working for the hawkish Syria advocacy group Citizens for a Secure and Safe America March 12. The firm lobbied the National Security Council, State Department, office of Vice President Mike Pence and Executive Office of President Donald Trump in separate filings submitted because of the firm’s name change. In each filing, the firm disclosed less than $5,000 in fees.
Americans for a Free Syria
(In-house)
Registered: 2017
2019 fees: $40,000
NEW Q1 domestic lobbying filing
The pro-opposition advocacy group Americans for a Free Syria is revamping its lobbyist roster, with government relations director Erica Hanichak and policy and public affairs strategist Jameson Cunningham leaving the organization while Thomas Georges and Dana Mosa-Basha registered as lobbyists during the first quarter of 2020. Georges has been a fellow at Americans for a Free Syria since March 2018 while Mosa-Basha joined as a program manager in November 2019.
Hanichak left Americans for a Free Syria in February after working at the organization since April 2017. She was congressional affairs coordinator at the Michigan nonprofit United for a Free Syria for two years before that. Cunningham is a former staffer for ex-Reps. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich., and Randy Hultgren, R-Ill., who joined Americans for a Free Syria in July 2018. His last day is April 9.
Squire Patton Boggs
(for High Negotiations Committee of the Syrian Opposition)
Hired: Sept. 2016
2018 fees: $0
NEW Supplemental
(July 1, 2019 – Dec. 31, 2019)
Squire Patton Boggs did not disclose any lobbying activity on behalf of the High Negotiations Committee of the Syrian Opposition (terminated in October) in the six-month period ending Dec. 31.
Ballard Partners
(for Citizens for a Safe and Secure America)
Hired: April 2018
2018 fees: $180,000
NEW Q3 domestic lobbying filing (termination)
Ballard Partners stopped lobbying for the US-based Syria advocacy group, Citizens for a Safe and Secure America, on Sept. 4. The group paid the firm $330,000 since hiring it in April 2018 to advocate for the “promotion of democratic change in Syria.” Lobbyists on the account had included former Donald Trump Florida lobbyist Brian Ballard, former Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin, Sylvester Lukis and Justin Sayfie.
ANNUAL OVERVIEW
Syrian opposition gives up on Trump
Julian Pecquet
@JPecquet_ALM
jpecquet@al-monitor.com
Julian Pecquet is the Editor of Special Projects for Al-Monitor, where he supervises the award-winning Lobbying Tracker as well as managing long-form stories. Before that he covered the US Congress for Al-Monitor. Prior to joining Al-Monitor, Pecquet led global affairs coverage for the political newspaper The Hill.
Posted: September 11, 2019
The Syrian opposition has all but given up on Washington lobbying as President Donald Trump heads to the exits following eight years of war.
The Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee umbrella group cut ties with the New York-based Independent Diplomat at the end of December after more than five years of collaboration. The nonprofit advisory group disclosed only $195,000 in payments from the British government on behalf of the Syrian opposition last year, down from $1.58 million in 2017, and no political activity since July 2018.
Meanwhile, Squire Patton Boggs, which has represented the opposition since 2016, reported no Syria-related payments or activities in all of 2018. (The firm was paid $94,000 in 2017 to advise the opposition “in connection with legal and strategic policy advice and advocacy on foreign policy and related issues in the US government.”)
The drawdown comes as the US government has made clear its disinterest in the Syria file beyond defeating the Islamic State (IS). Trump ordered the withdrawal of the 2,000 US troops in the country in December 2018, but agreed to keep about 400 Americans in February amid misgivings from the State and Defense departments.
Meanwhile, the State Department’s budget request for the coming fiscal year zeroes out last year’s $174.5 million investment in economic and development aid and explosives removal in areas liberated from both the Bashar al-Assad regime and IS and other extremist groups. The Defense Department for its part continues to seek $300 million in train-and-equip funding for what it calls the “Vetted Syrian Opposition” in its fiscal year 2020 budget request.
The bulk of that is expected to go to the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Earlier this year, Lt. Gen. Paul LaCamera, the commander of the US-led coalition battling IS, warned that US military support would end if the Kurdish fighters partner with Assad.
Even as the Arab-dominated opposition has pulled back, the Syrian Kurds have stepped up their lobbying.
The US Mission of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) — the political wing of the SDF alliance that rules the autonomous region of Rojava in northeast Syria — set up shop in Washington in January 2018 with the mission to ”better equip” its army, “improve the region's counter-terrorism apparatus,” “end the Turkish occupation of Syria,” allow Rojava to operate an international airport and increase humanitarian aid to the region. The group reports receiving $8,000-$10,000 a month from “various Syrian and Kurdish grassroots supporters in the United States” and scored a public relations coup in February when it got Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, to invite visiting Syrian Kurdish leader Ilham Ahmed to the State of the Union as her guest.
One of the SDC’s key asks is US support for the group’s detention of captured IS fighters. The Senate version of pending defense authorization legislation includes such a provision, while the House version does not.
Meanwhile, several US groups continue to support a tough line against Assad’s regime despite the lack of US interest in forcing him out.
The nonprofit Americans for a Free Syria, which advocates for a “free, democratic, and secular Syria,” spent $22,000 last year — and $20,000 in the first half of this year — lobbying Congress and the State, Treasury and Homeland Security departments. The group notably supports sanctions legislation against those responsible for war crimes in Syria that has passed both the House and Senate this year, sanctions against Iranian proxies, legislation barring US reconstruction assistance in areas under Assad’s control and the extension of Temporary Protected Status for Syrians.
Another nonprofit, Citizens for a Secure and Safe America, hired former Trump Florida lobbyist Brian Ballard and his Ballard Partners firm last year to promote “democratic change” in Syria. The firm receives $60,000 per quarter to lobby Congress and the Trump administration on policies to democracy and the return of refugees and displaced people.
HIGHLIGHTS
Main lobbying firm:
Squire Patton Boggs
$545,000
Total lobbying and PR spending for 2018
WINS
- Congress includes Caesar sanctions in defense bill
- Pentagon maintains $300 million request for ‘vetted Syrian opposition’
- Senate urges US support for detention of IS detainees in Syria
LOSSES
- Trump pulls US troops out of Syria
- State Department ends reconstruction funding
- Syrian opposition drops lobbyist
KNOW MORE
Syria’s Kurds feel brunt of Turkish-US crisis
Lamar Erkendi
Trump budget nixes aid to opposition-held Syria
Bryant Harris
US prepares new pressure campaign on Assad
Bryant Harris
U.S. ASSISTANCE
