Guatemala has hired for US$900,000 a major supporter of former US president Donald Trump to seek influence with US officials in an unusual lobbying contract paid for by its ally Taiwan, foreign lobby records show.
Ballard Partners on Thursday registered as a foreign agent with the US Department of Justice, filings made public over the weekend showed.
The contract, dated Wednesday last week, was signed by Guatemalan Ambassador to the US Alfonso Quinonez and Brian Ballard, president of the lobbying firm and a longtime Trump ally.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
It is not clear how hiring Ballard, who years before Trump ran for the White House worked for him as a lobbyist in Florida, could help Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei draw closer to the Democratic administration of US President Joe Biden, which has repeatedly expressed concerns about corruption in the Central American nation.
On Sunday, the US Department of State blasted Giammattei’s government for seeking to lift the immunity from prosecution of a judge who has won high honors in Washington for exposing bribery in Guatemala.
“This action against an internationally recognized independent judge weakens a vital pillar of Guatemala’s democracy and judicial system,” US Department of State spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.
In its registration, Ballard only said that it would provide “strategic consulting and advocacy services” related to Guatemala’s interactions with the US government and US officials.
Justin Sayfie, a partner in Ballard’s Washington office, declined to comment further, but he said the request for Taiwan to assume responsibility for payment was not the firm’s idea.
“It’s unusual for one government to be paying the fees for lobbying for another government,” said Robert Kelner, an attorney specializing in compliance with foreign lobbying laws for Covington & Burling.
“It’s not illegal. But it does raise a question of whether the government that pays also needs to be listed by the lobbying firm as a foreign principal,” he said.
Guatemala in a statement thanked Taiwan for the “support that allows us to strengthen our positioning in the US.”
It said that the one-year contract with Ballard, for which it is paying US$75,000 per month, would focus on strategic communication, investor outreach and promoting tourism.
In Taipei, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) yesterday said that the arrangement followed the principle of “mutual assistance and mutual benefit to promote pragmatic diplomacy.”
The assistance complied with US law and was endorsed by Guatemala’s government and its political opposition, Ou said in an e-mailed statement.
“In the future, the two countries will continue to promote various programs beneficial to their nations and peoples on the basis of existing good cooperation,” she said.
Giammattei, a law-and-order conservative, managed to bypass criticism in Washington and forge a productive relationship with the Trump administration by yielding to the White House’s pressure to embrace an asylum agreement negotiated by his predecessor that he opposed when he ran for the presidency in 2019.
However, he has struggled to build close ties to the Biden administration, which has sought to undo Trump’s immigration policies, and taken a harsher look at corruption and rule of law issues in the so-called “Northern Triangle” nations of Central America.
Ballard is to manage the account, along with two associates with extensive ties to the Republican Party: Jose Diaz, a former Florida state representative who is a managing partner of Ballard’s office in Miami; and Sayfie, a one-time adviser to former Florida governor Jeb Bush who also headed the president’s commission on White House Fellowships during the Trump administration. A third associate representing Guatemala, John O’Hanlon, is a long-time Democrat.
Ballard amassed dozens of foreign and domestic lobbying clients during the Trump presidency — including Qatar, the Dominican Republic and Zimbabwe — when he was described by Politico as “The Most Powerful Lobbyist in Trump’s Washington.”
The firm has added a number of influential Democratic fundraisers and named former US representative Robert Wexler as managing partner of its Washington office to bolster its credentials with the Biden White House.
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