{"id":47980,"date":"2014-09-29T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2014-09-29T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=47980"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:29:42","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:29:42","slug":"how-former-treasury-officials-and-the-uae-are-manipulating-american-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/09\/how-former-treasury-officials-and-the-uae-are-manipulating-american-journalists\/","title":{"rendered":"How Former Treasury Officials and the UAE Are Manipulating American Journalists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thu 25 Sep 2014 – (updated below [Fri. 26\/9] \u2013 Update II [Fri.])<\/strong><\/p>\n

The tiny and very rich Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar has become a hostile target for two nations with significant influence in the U.S.: Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Israel is furious over\u00a0Qatar\u2019s support for Palestinians generally<\/a> and (allegedly) Hamas specifically, while the UAE is upset that Qatar\u00a0supports the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt<\/a>\u00a0(UAE supports the leaders<\/a> of the military coup)\u00a0and that Qatar\u00a0funds Islamist rebels in Libya<\/a>\u00a0(UAE supports forces aligned with Ghadaffi (see update below)).<\/p>\n

This animosity has resulted in a new campaign in the west to demonize the Qataris as the key supporter of terrorism. The Israelis have chosen the direct approach of publicly accusing<\/a> their new enemy in Doha of being terrorist supporters<\/a>, while the UAE has opted for a more covert strategy: paying millions of dollars to a U.S. lobbying firm \u2013 composed of former high-ranking Treasury officials from both parties \u2013 to plant anti-Qatar stories with American journalists. That more subtle tactic has been remarkably successful, and shines important light on how easily political narratives in U.S. media discourse can be literally purchased.<\/p>\n

This murky anti-Qatar campaign was first referenced by a\u00a0New York Times<\/em> article<\/a> two weeks ago by David Kirkpatrick, which reported that \u201can unlikely alignment of interests, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel\u201d is seeking to depict Doha as \u201ca\u00a0godfather to terrorists everywhere\u201d (Qatar vehemently denies<\/a> the accusation). One critical component of that campaign was mentioned in passing:<\/p>\n

The United Arab Emirates have retained an American consulting firm, Camstoll Group, staffed by several former United States Treasury Department officials. Its public disclosure forms, filed as a registered foreign agent, showed a pattern of conversations with journalists who subsequently wrote articles critical of Qatar\u2019s role in terrorist fund-raising.<\/em><\/p>\n

How that process worked is fascinating, and its efficacy demonstrates how American public perceptions and media reports are manipulated with little difficulty.<\/p>\n

The Camstoll Group was formed on November 26, 2012<\/a>. Its key figures are all former senior Treasury Department officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations whose responsibilities included managing the U.S. government\u2019s relationships with Persian Gulf regimes and Israel, as well as managing policies relating to funding of designated terrorist groups. Most have backgrounds as neoconservative activists. Two of the Camstoll principals, prior to their Treasury jobs, worked with one of the country\u2019s most extremist neocon<\/a> anti-Muslim activists<\/a>, Steve Emerson.<\/p>\n

Camstoll\u2019s founder, CEO and sole owner, Matthew Epstein, was a Treasury Department official from 2003 through 2010, a run that included a position as the department\u2019s\u00a0Financial Attach\u00e9 to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. A 2007 diplomatic cable<\/a>\u00a0leaked by Chelsea Manning and published by WikiLeaks details Epstein\u2019s meetings with high-level Abu Dhabi representatives as they plotted to cut off Iran\u2019s financial and banking transactions. Those cables reveal multiple<\/a> high-level<\/a> meetings<\/a> between<\/a> Epstein in his capacity as a Treasury official and high-level officials of the Emirates, officials who are now paying his company millions of dollars to act as its agent inside the U.S.<\/p>\n

Prior to his Treasury appointment by the Bush administration, Epstein was a neoconservative activist, writing articles for\u00a0<\/a>National Review<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and working with<\/a> Emerson\u2019s aggressively anti-Muslim Investigative Project<\/a> (Epstein\u2019s\u00a0published resume<\/a> omits his work with Emerson). His\u00a0pre-Treasury work for Emerson\u2019s group, obsessed with The Muslim Threat Within, presaged Peter King\u2019s 2011 anti-Muslim witch hunts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2003, for instance, Epstein\u00a0told the U.S. Senate<\/a>\u00a0that \u201clarge sections of the institutional Islamic leadership in America\u00a0do not support U.S. counterterrorism policy\u201d and that \u201cthe radicalization of the Islamic political leadership in the United States has\u00a0developed parallel to the radicalization of the Islamic leadership worldwide, sharing a\u00a0conspiratorial view that Muslims in the United States are being persecuted on the basis of\u00a0their religion and an acceptance that violence in the name of Islam is justified.\u201d He declared: \u201cthe rise of militant Islamic leadership in the United States requires particular\u00a0attention if we are to succeed in the War on Terror.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camstoll\u2019s Managing Director, Howard Mendelsohn, was\u00a0Acting Assistant Secretary of Treasury, where he also had ample policy responsibilities involving the Emirates;\u00a0a 2010 WikiLeaks cable<\/a>\u00a0details how he \u201cmet with senior officials from the UAE\u2019s State Security Department (SSD) and Dubai\u2019s General Department of State Security (GDSS)\u201d to coordinate disruption of Taliban financing. Another Managing Director, Benjamin Schmidt, worked with Epstein at Emerson\u2019s Investigative Project<\/a> before his own appointment to Treasury; a 2009 diplomatic cable<\/a> shows him working with Israel on controlling financing to Palestinians. A Camstoll director, Benjamin Davis, was the Treasury Department\u2019s Financial Attach\u00e9 in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

On December 2, 2012 \u2013 less than a week after Camstoll was incorporated \u2013 it entered into a lucrative, open-ended consulting contract<\/a> with an entity wholly owned by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, Outlook Energy Investments, LLC (its Emir, the President of UAE, is pictured above). A week later, Camstoll registered as a foreign agent<\/a>\u00a0working on behalf of the Emirate. The consultancy agreement calls for Camstoll to be paid a monthly fee of $400,000, wired each month into a Camstoll account. Two weeks after it was formed, Camstoll was paid by the Emirates entity\u00a0a retainer fee of $4.3 million<\/a>, and then\u00a0another $3.2 million in 2013<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In other words, a senior Treasury official responsible for U.S. policy toward the Emirates leaves the U.S. government and forms a new lobbying company, which is then instantly paid millions of dollars by the very same country for which he was responsible, all to use his influence, access and contacts for its advantage. The UAE spends more than any other country in the world<\/a> to influence U.S. policy and shape domestic debate, and it pays former high-level government officials who worked with it \u2013 such as Epstein and his company \u2013 to carry out its agenda within the U.S.<\/p>\n

What did Camstoll do for these millions of dollars? They spent enormous of amounts of time cajoling friendly reporters to plant anti-Qatar stories, and they largely succeeded.\u00a0Their strategy was clear: target neocon\/pro-Israel writers such as the Daily Beast<\/em>\u2018s Eli Lake,\u00a0Free Beacon\u2018s<\/em> Alana Goodman, Iran-contra convict Elliott Abrams, The Washington Post<\/em>\u2018s Jennifer Rubin,\u00a0and American Enterprise Institute\u2019s Michael Rubin \u2013 all eager to promote the Qatar-funds-terrorists<\/em> line being pushed by Israel. They also targeted establishment media figures such as CNN\u2019s Erin Burnett, Reuters\u2019 Mark Hosenball, and\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>\u2018s Joby Warrick.<\/p>\n

In the latter half of 2013, Camstoll reported<\/a> 15 separate contacts with Lake, all on behalf of UAE\u2019s agenda; in the month of December alone, there were 10 separate contacts with Goodman. They also spoke multiple times with\u00a0Warrick.\u00a0At the same time, they were speaking on behalf of their Emirates client with their former colleagues who were still working as high-level Treasury officials, including Kate Bauer, the Treasury Department\u2019s Emirates-based Financial Attach\u00e9<\/a>, and Deputy Assistant Secretary Danny McGlynn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"camstoll-540x462<\/a><\/p>\n

In the first half of 2014, as the Emirates attack on Qatar intensified, Camstoll spoke multiple times with Lake, Hosenball, and Erin Burnett\u2019s CNN show \u201cOut Front,\u201d and had conversations with Goodman and the\u00a0NYT<\/em>\u2018s David Kirkpatrick. They continued to meet with high-level Treasury officials as well, including Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing Daniel Glaser<\/a>\u00a0(highlights added):<\/p>\n

\"comstall-fara-doc-540x546<\/a><\/p>\n

This work paid dividends for the UAE. In June, when the Obama administration announced a plan to release Guantanamo detainees to Qatar, Lake published a widely cited Daily Beast\u00a0<\/em>article<\/a>\u00a0depicting Qatar as friends of the terrorists; it quoted anonymous officials as claiming that \u201cmany wealthy individuals in Qatar are raising money for jihadists in Syria every day\u201d and \u201cwe also know that we have sent detainees to them before, and their security services have magically lost track of them.\u201d Lake himself pronounced that \u201cQatar\u2019s track record is troubling\u201d and that \u201cthe emirate is a good place to raise money for terrorist organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then went on Fox News<\/a> and said that \u201cthere still is a major issue with just terrorist financing in Qatar\u201d and that in Doha there are \u201cindividuals who are roaming free who have raised a lot of money for al Qaeda, Hamas and other groups like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"lake11-640x430<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, CNN sent Burnett to Doha where she broadcast a \u201cspecial report\u201d entitled<\/a>: \u201cIs Qatar a haven for terror funding\u201d? CNN touted it as \u201can in-depth look into the people funding Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda-linked groups, including ISIS.\u201d She began her report<\/a> by noting that \u201cthe terror group ISIS is committing atrocities in Iraq. The Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki blames Saudi Arabia and Qatar for providing ISIS militants with money and weapons.\u201d\u00a0She then put on a source, former Bush deputy national security adviser and Treasury official Juan Zarate<\/a>, to say that \u201cQatar is at the center of this. Qatar has now taken its place in the lead of countries that are supporting al Qaeda and al Qaeda-related groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"cnn1-540x182<\/a><\/p>\n

On camera, Burnett asked her source: \u201cSo how high up in the government in Qatar does the support for Islamic extremism for these al Qaeda-linked groups go?\u201d The answer: \u201cWell, these are decisions made at the top. So Qatar operates as a monarchy. Its officials, its activities follow the orders of the government. And to the extent that there\u2019s a policy of supporting extremists in the region, that\u2019s a policy that comes from the top.\u201d She then brought on the GOP Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Michael McCaul, and asked whether he agrees that \u201cmoney out of Qatar could end up being used to fuel the ambition, the dream, of attacks against the United States directly,\u201d and he quickly said he did.<\/p>\n

Camstoll\u2019s work with the Post<\/em>\u2018s Warrick also proved quite productive. Camstoll spoke with Warrick on December 17, 2013. The very next day, the Post<\/em> reporter\u00a0published an article<\/a> stating that \u201cprivate Qatar-based charities have taken a more prominent role in recent weeks in raising cash and supplies for Islamist extremists in Syria, according to current and former U.S. and Middle Eastern officials.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camstoll representatives spoke again with Warrick on December 20 and December 21. The day after, he published another more accusatory article<\/a>\u00a0citing \u201cincreasing U.S. concern about the role of Qatari individuals and charities in supporting extreme elements within Syria\u2019s rebel alliance\u201d and linking the Qatari royal family to a professor and U.S. foreign policy critic alleged by the U.S. government to be\u00a0\u201dworking secretly as a financier for al-Qaeda.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"washpost-540x371<\/a><\/p>\n

As one of his sources, Warrick in the first of his articles cited \u201ca former U.S. official who specialized in tracking Gulf-based jihadist movements and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because much of his work for the government was classified.\u201d That perfectly describes several Camstoll Group members, though Warrick did not respond to questions from\u00a0The Intercept <\/em>about\u00a0whether this anonymous source was indeed a paid agent of the UAE working at Camstoll.<\/p>\n

Also on Camstoll\u2019s list of journalistic contacts was Kirkpatrick, who produced the article<\/a>\u00a0in the NYT<\/em> two weeks ago\u00a0headlined \u201cQatar\u2019s Support of Islamists Alienates Allies Near and Far.\u201d It noted that Qatar \u201chas tacitly consented to open fund-raising\u201d for Al Qaeda affiliates.<\/p>\n

But unlike all the other reports helpfully produced by Camstoll\u2019s journalistic allies, Kirkpatrick expressly described, and cast skeptical light on, the concerted campaign to focus on Qatar, not only mentioning Camstoll\u2019s behind-the-scenes work but also reporting that \u201cQatar is finding itself under withering attack by an unlikely alignment of interests, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel, which have all sought to portray it as a godfather to terrorists everywhere.\u201d\u00a0Kirkpatrick also noted that \u201csome in Washington have accused it of\u00a0directly supporting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria<\/a>,\u201d a claim he called \u201cimplausible and unsubstantiated.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to questions from The Intercept<\/em> about Camstoll\u2019s role in his reporting, Lake refused to answer any questions, stating: \u201cI don\u2019t talk about how I do my reporting. I meet with many representatives and officials of foreign governments in the course of my job.\u201d (So many journalists pride themselves on demanding transparency and accountability from others while adopting a posture of absolute secrecy for their own work that would make even a Pentagon spokesperson blush: \u201cI don\u2019t talk about how I do my reporting\u201d). Goodman similarly said: \u201cas I\u2019m sure you understand, I can\u2019t discuss my private conversations with contacts.\u201d\u00a0Camstoll\u2019s contacts with Goodman and Hosenball appear to have produced no identifiable reports. Camstoll, Warwick, and Hosenball all provided no response to questions from\u00a0The Intercept<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The point here is not that Qatar is innocent of supporting extremists. Nor is it a reflection on any inappropriate conduct by the journalists, who are taking information from wherever they can get it (although one would certainly hope that, as Kirkpatrick did, they would make clear what the agenda and paid campaign behind this narrative is).<\/p>\n

The point\u00a0is that this coordinated media attack on Qatar \u2013 using highly paid former U.S. officials and their media allies \u2013 is simply a weapon used by the Emirates, Israel, the Saudis and others to advance their agendas. Kirkpatrick explained:\u00a0\u201dpropelling the barrage of accusations against Qatar is a regional contest for power in which competing Persian Gulf monarchies have backed opposing proxies in contested places like Gaza, Libya and especially Egypt.\u201d As political science professor As\u2019ad AbuKhalil\u00a0wrote this week<\/a>\u00a0about conflicts in Syria and beyond, \u201cthe two Wahhabi regimes [Saudi Arabia and Qatar] are fighting over many issues but they both wish to speak on behalf of political Islam.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s misleading isn\u2019t the claim that Qatar funds extremists but that they do so more than other U.S. allies in the region (a narrative implanted at exactly the time Qatar has become a key target of Israel and the Emirates). Indeed, some of Qatar\u2019s accusers here do the same to at least the same extent, and in the case of the Saudis, far more so. As Kirkpatrick noted: \u201cQatar is hardly the only gulf monarchy to allow open fund-raising by sheikhs that the United States government has linked to Al Qaeda\u2019s Syrian franchise, the Nusra Front: Sheikh Ajmi and most of the others are based in Kuwait and readily tap donors in Saudi Arabia, sometimes even making their pitches on Saudi- and Kuwaiti-owned television networks.\u201d<\/p>\n

One\u00a0U.S. government cable from 2009<\/a>, also published by WikiLeaks, identified Saudi Arabia, not Qatar, as the greatest danger in this regard:<\/p>\n

Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.<\/em><\/p>\n

The writer of that cable complained that \u201cit has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to his appointment as a Treasury official \u2013 and before he began working as a paid agent of the UAE to finger Qatar as the key threat \u2013 Camstoll\u2019s founder and CEO, Epstein, himself fingered Saudis<\/a> as the key financiers of Al Qaeda and anti-American terrorism. His 2003 Senate testimony included this statement: \u201cthe Saudi Wahhabists have\u00a0bankrolled a series of Islamic institutions in the United States that actively seek to\u00a0undermine U.S. counterterrorism policy at home and abroad\u201d; he added: \u201cin the United States, the\u00a0Saudi Wahhabis regularly subsidize the organizations and individuals adhering to the\u00a0militant ideology espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood and its murderous offshoots\u00a0Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda, all three of which are designated terrorist.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the 2009 cable claimed claimed that\u00a0\u201dQatar\u2019s overall level of CT cooperation with the U.S. is considered the worst in the region,\u201d it said this was \u201cout of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals.\u201d But\u00a0the cable also identified other U.S. allies in the region as key conduits for terrorist financing, stating, for instance, that \u201cAl-Qa\u2019ida and other groups continue to exploit Kuwait both as a source of funds and as a key transit point.\u201d It also heavily implicated the Emirates themselves:\u00a0\u201dUAE-based donors have provided financial support to a variety of terrorist groups, including al-Qa\u2019ida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups, including Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most critical points illustrated by all of this tawdry influence-peddling is the alignment driving so much of US policy in that region. The key principals of Camstoll have hard-core neoconservative backgrounds. Here they are working hand in hand with neocon journalists to publicly trash a new enemy of Israel, in service of the agenda of Gulf dictators. This is the bizarre neocon\/Israel\/Gulf-dictator coalition now driving not only U.S. policy but, increasingly, U.S. discourse as well.<\/p>\n

UPDATE [Fri.]<\/strong>: It\u2019s obviously ancillary to the article, but several people have raised valid objections about the claim here that the forces in Libya now being supported by the UAE are accurately characterized as Gadaffi loyalists, arguing that the UAE supported anti-Gadaffi rebels during the NATO intervention and many they now support are still opposed to Gadaffi loyalists. The evidence for the original reference is found in articles such as this one<\/a>, describing how those UAE-supported factions are fighting with \u201cmany pro-Gaddafi prisoners\u201d who have been released. But those raising the question are right that the description is an over-simplification about the groups fighting in Libya who are supported by the UAE. The important point is that Qatar and the UAE are supporting different factions, but it\u2019s more complex than the phrase \u201csupports forces aligned with Ghadaff\u201d suggested.<\/p>\n

UPDATE II [Fri.]<\/strong>: Prior to publication of this article, Lake categorically refused to talk about his reporting in response to questions from The Intercept <\/em>(\u201cI don\u2019t talk about how I do my reporting\u201d).\u00a0<\/em>He has now apparently changed his mind, claiming today on Twitter<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I spoke to no camstoll officials for this piece http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/articles\/2014\/06\/05\/u-s-spies-worry-qatar-will-magically-lose-track-of-released-taliban.html\u00a0\u2026<\/a> as @ggreenwald<\/a> implies in his piece.<\/p>\n

Lake does not deny the more-than-a-dozen contacts with Camstoll, nor, when asked<\/a>, would he deny that he spoke with them about Qatari funding of or support for terrorism prior to his article (indeed, he expressly said<\/a> he is not denying that). Nor has he contested any of the specific claims actually made here. Everyone should review the evidence presented \u2013 both here and in Kirkpatrick\u2019s original NYT article \u2013 and decide for themselves what it shows.<\/p>\n

______________________________<\/p>\n

Margot Williams and Andrew Fishman contributed additional reporting<\/em><\/p>\n

Photo: Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates (Murat Cetinmuhurdar\/Turkish Presidency Press Office\/AP)<\/em><\/p>\n

Email the author: glenn.greenwald@theintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 firstlook.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bizarre neocon\/ Israel\/ Gulf-dictator coalition is now driving not only U.S. policy but U.S. discourse, as well, aided by ex U.S. officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}