Saudi Arabia Hires Lawmaker to Lobby Trump White House, Congress

Local Editor

Saudi Arabia just added another heavyweight to its already formidable team of lobbyists: former California Rep. Howard McKeon. The longtime GOP lawmaker isn't any ordinary lobbyist. Between 2011 and 2015, he was the chair of the powerful House Armed Services Committee, which oversees the Department of War and its multibillion dollar foreign-military sales program to Saudi Arabia.

On his registration form, McKeon indicated he would "provide consulting and government relations counsel" and that he would "undertake specific advocacy requests with regard to legislative and public policy matters."

McKeon joined the Saudi lobby at a key moment. In September, the Saudi army of lobbyists failed to defeat a bill that opened up the door for 9/11 victims to sue the Kingdom for its alleged connection to the attackers. Saudi is also under fire on Capitol Hill for human rights abuses in its two-year military campaign in Yemen, where US-supplied Saudi planes have bombed hospitals, schools and key infrastructure.

Over the summer, 64 lawmakers signed a letter decrying the sale of cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia, and in September, a bipartisan coalition nearly blocked a multi-billion dollar sale of tanks to the Kingdom. That company furnishing the tanks was General Dynamics, which contributed over $100,000 to McKeon over the course of his career.

By signing on as a Saudi lobbyist, McKeon will be lobbying his former colleagues to keep arming Saudi Arabia at a time of uncertainty for the US-Saudi alliance.

The incoming Donald Trump administration has sent mixed messages: At times, President-elect Trump has hinted he'd pull away from Saudi. "The primary reason we are with Saudi Arabia is because we need the oil," he said in August. "Now, we don't need the oil so much." But Trump has also suggested that he wouldn't object to Saudi Arabia acquiring nuclear weapons and has pledged to "protect" the Kingdom.

Amid the transfer of power from Barack Obama to Trump, McKeon is expected to push for continuity in the US-Saudi relationship.

"[His] years of experience on the House Armed Services Committee, including his last four as the head of the committee, would put him in a privileged position to push Congress to continue to allow arms sales to Saudi Arabia," said Seth Binder, program manager for Security Assistance Monitor, "despite the growing concern over the increasing number of possible human rights violations committed by the Saudi-led coalition's bombing in Yemen."

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team