Former Cong. Bob Livingston published a commentary in the Wall Street Journal last week asking outgoing U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to apologize for investigating the Livingston Group, a lobbying firm that was paid millions of dollars by the Government of Turkey to deny the Armenian Genocide and block its acknowledgment by the U.S. Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Livingston accused Garland of being \u201ca tool in the Democratic Party\u2019s strategy of misusing the Justice Department to visit injustice on innocent people with differing political views.\u201d Livingston was a Republican congressman from 1977 to 1999. He was slated to become the Speaker of the House, but resigned after the revelation of his extramarital affair. Subsequently, he formed and headed the Livingston Group for 25 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Livingston wrote in his commentary that \u201cin 2022 two FBI agents came to my home in New Orleans and questioned me [for 2.5 hours] about incidents involving our representation of an international client in 2018.\u201d The FBI agents presented \u201ca search warrant for all my company\u2019s records related to their questions.\u201d The next day, the FBI informed him that he was \u201cthe target of felony charges.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Livingston claimed that in December 2023 an FBI agent interviewed one of his employees who \u201cwas scared to death. He went to bed on Dec. 31, 2023, and didn\u2019t wake up the next day.\u201d Livingston wrote that \u201cevery day and night for 20 months, I lived with the possibility that the hammer could drop at any moment. Everything I worked for would be tarnished. My firm would collapse, my employees would lose their jobs, all of us would be ruined in the press, and I could go to prison.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Livingston claimed that he and his firm were \u201cinnocent of all charges\u2026. We spent incredible amounts of money on legal counsel, more than three times what we earned by representing the client at issue. Our attorneys prepared an 88-page brief rebutting all charges. They succeeded in backing prosecutors down, but I am convinced the department\u2019s actions were political and malicious, targeting me as a lobbyist who has supported Donald Trump and been critical of President Biden\u2026. The statute of limitations expired on our case in November, and prosecutors have said they are no longer interested in pursuing charges.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rather than being satisfied that the charges against him and his firm were dropped, Livingston went on to claim that \u201cmembers of the Trump administration and Mr. Trump himself have been hounded and arrested. They\u2019ve had their lives ruined for minor white-collar infractions. Mr. Trump has prevailed over attempts to destroy him, but others have been less fortunate.\u201d Livingston conveniently forgot that Trump was convicted of sexual abuse and 34 felonies, becoming the first U.S. President who is a convicted criminal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In order to put Livingston\u2019s complaint in context, let us learn a little more about this man and see who should apologize to whom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The New York Times, in an article published on October 17, 2007, titled: \u201cTurkey\u2019s Man in the Lobbies of Capitol Hill,\u201d provided a partial list of Livingston firm\u2019s sinister activities on behalf of genocide denialist Turkey for millions of dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Times described Livingston as \u201cthe main lobbyist for Turkey in blocking Congressional efforts to pass an Armenian genocide resolution. After succeeding twice before [in 2000 and 2004] \u2014 and collecting more than $12 million in fees for his firm, the Livingston Group \u2014 he is pushing once again for his client\u2026. He escorted Turkish dignitaries to Capitol Hill to warn that the resolution threatened to destroy a strong Iraq war alliance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA surge of defections by [House] members who backed the resolution showed that Mr. Livingston\u2019s high-powered effort was gaining momentum,\u201d the Times reported. \u201cMr. Livingston has showered money on House and Senate members, the National Republican Congressional Committee and other political causes. He and his firm gave more than $200,000 in campaign donations in the last election cycle, records show.\u2026 The issue has pitted Turkey\u2019s money and high-placed connections against a persistent and emotional campaign by Armenian-American citizens\u2019 groups,\u201d the Times wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To leave no stone unturned, the Turkish government had also recruited the \u201cformer Cong. Stephen J. Solarz whose firm got $165,000 this summer lobbying for Turkey under an arrangement with Mr. Livingston.\u201d Furthermore, Turkey hired \u201canother prominent lobbyist, Richard A. Gephardt, of Missouri, the former House majority leader and a Democrat\u201d who had co-sponsored the Genocide Resolution while he was a House member. His firm, DLA Piper, signed a year-long lobbying contract with Turkey for $1.2 million. Just in the 12 months beginning in August 2005, Turkey spent $3.2 million on lobbyists and public relations firms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Livingston group also lobbied for Azerbaijan, Congo and the Cayman Islands. \u201cMore than a quarter of the firm\u2019s income, which has totaled more than $71 million, has come from foreign clients, records show,\u201d the Times article revealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rather than asking Attorney General Garland to apologize, Livingston is the one who should apologize to the global Armenian community for spreading and profiting from his heinous lies denying the Armenian Genocide. Livingston should donate to Armenian-American organizations all $12 million his firm earned from Turkey to right the wrongs he and his firm committed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Former Cong. Bob Livingston published a commentary in the Wall Street Journal last week asking outgoing U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to apologize for investigating the Livingston Group, a lobbying firm that was paid millions of dollars by the Government of Turkey to deny the Armenian Genocide and block its acknowledgment by the U.S. Congress. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4101,"featured_media":62165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3488],"tags":[5014],"class_list":["post-824567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-harut-sassounian","tag-lobbying"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}