Ileana Ros-Lehtinen now works for a country that ‘propped up’ Nicolas Maduro’s regime

In June 2017, then-Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen delivered a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives criticizing U.S.-based investment bank Goldman Sachs for buying bonds from Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

It was one of many times the longtime Miami Republican lawmaker criticized companies for giving Maduro a cash infusion while he blocked political opposition and ordinary Venezuelans starved.

“Venezuela’s pervasive corruption means any infusion of cash, like Goldman Sachs, will not benefit the people of Venezuela who desperately need it,” Ros-Lehtinen said at the time. “Instead, Maduro and his thugs fill their coffers and use the cash to abuse the Venezuelan people and use it to stay in power.”

But 2 1/2 years later, Ros-Lehtinen, now a private citizen, is being paid to carry out the interests of the United Arab Emirates, where an investment firm with connections to the country’s state-run oil company provided an economic lifeline to Maduro days before the U.S. recognized National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate leader.

The exchange of Venezuelan gold for cash by UAE investment firm Noor Capital prompted a rebuke from Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who warned on Twitter that any companies involved “will face U.S. sanctions.”

And a year after over 50 countries recognized Guaidó, the UAE hasn’t joined them.

The UAE’s Venezuela stance prompted criticism as recently as last month from Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who serves on the Senate subcommittee responsible for Latin American affairs. He said the actions of countries like the UAE make it harder for U.S. sanctions and diplomatic pressure to be effective.

“One of the reasons it’s so hard is not just our adversaries — Venezuela’s propped up by Iran, Cuba, China, Russia — but UAE, Turkey, India,” Kaine said at an Armed Services Committee hearing in January. “Allies of ours have helped them evade U.S. sanctions, have helped prop them up. It’s one of the reasons the Maduro government has had some lasting power.”

In January, Ros-Lehtinen registered as a foreign agent for the UAE through her work with the Washington law firm Akin Gump shortly after a mandatory one-year lobbying ban that applies to all former members of Congress expired. Ros-Lehtinen represented Florida’s 27th Congressional District, a Miami-based seat with one of the largest Venezuelan communities in the U.S., from 1989 to 2019.

Ros-Lehtinen, a paid monthly columnist for the Miami Herald, and Akin Gump declined to comment.

The UAE is a longtime Akin Gump client that paid the firm $6 million for its services from July to December of 2019, and having a former member of Congress on the payroll who was popular among colleagues from both parties on Capitol Hill is a way for the Emirates to get access to powerful lawmakers in Washington.

Ros-Lehtinen’s foreign agent disclosure filing says she will “provide outreach to U.S. government officials and counsel on policy issues related to a number of issues including, among others: export controls and sanctions, trade policies, human rights, U.S. foreign and defense policies, foreign media registration and strengthening trilateral relations and regional security.”

The filing does not indicate how much Ros-Lehtinen will be paid for her work on behalf of the UAE, though it does state her salary is not solely based on her UAE work.

“Neither the firm nor Ms. Ros-Lehtinen have anything further to provide beyond what appears in our filing,” Akin Gump communications director Benjamin Harris said in an email.

The UAE and Venezuela

The UAE’s ties to Venezuela’s political struggle made headlines a year ago, when the U.S. and dozens of other countries took the extraordinary step of recognizing Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate leader.

Days before Guaidó’s recognition, Maduro was handed a financial lifeline by Middle Eastern firms in the UAE and Turkey interested in acquiring Venezuelan gold in exchange for cash.

The transactions in January and February of 2019 attracted attention from U.S. officials and lawmakers, notably Miami politicians like Rubio and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who warned that the transactions ran afoul of U.S. sanctions.

“Maduro is raiding the gold reserves of Venezuela to generate cash. He has already stolen at least 10% of total reserves in the last week,” Rubio tweeted on Feb. 1, 2019. “I hope the UAE and Turkey will not be accomplices in this outrageous crime. Any companies that are involved will face U.S. sanctions.”

Two weeks earlier, Abu Dhabi investment firm Noor Capital bought 3 tons of gold from Venezuela’s central bank. The transaction was agreed to on Jan. 21, 2019, two days before the U.S. and dozens of other countries recognized Guaidó. On Jan. 26, the gold was shipped from Venezuela to the UAE.

Noor Capital said in a statement in January 2019 that the transaction aligned with “international standards and laws in place” as of Jan. 21. But the move angered Rubio, the most well-known advocate for Guaidó in Congress.

Rubio tweeted at the UAE’s U.S. embassy, warning that an exchange of Venezuelan gold for cash would violate U.S. sanctions.

“We have reports that a French national working for Noor Capital is in Caracas today to arrange for the theft of more Gold from Venezuela,” Rubio tweeted. “I hope you have advised them that they & any air charter service that does this will be subject to Treasury sanctions.”

After Rubio’s tweets, Noor Capital announced that it would refrain from further transactions and there is no indication that any took place after the January 2019 deal. White House and State Department Officials, as well as regional experts, were unable to cite any additional or ongoing evidence of UAE efforts to help Venezuela evade sanctions.

But the Trump administration continues to track Venezuela’s gold trade. A senior administration official told the Miami Herald ”we have had various frank discussions with the UAE” on the issue.

Opposition lawmakers in Venezuela also have alleged that two firms based in the UAE and one in Turkey bought 73 tons of Venezuelan gold in 2018 without receiving approval from the opposition-controlled National Assembly. The sales amounted to 40 percent of Venezuela’s gold reserves at the time.

Of the two companies, Noor Capital bought the largest amount of gold from Venezuela in 2018, 27.3 tons, according to opposition lawmaker Carlos Paparoni. Goetz Gold, a Belgian firm based in the UAE, bought an additional 21 tons of Venezuelan gold.

A 2019 Miami Herald series detailed how “blood gold” keeps Maduro in power. Gold is often illegally mined and smuggled from Venezuela’s rainforests through Colombia to dealers in Miami, and the cash flows back to Venezuela. Importers in Europe, Africa and the United Arab Emirates also purchase gold and provide Maduro’s regime with much-needed cash to fund social programs and patronage networks.

In response to Venezuela’s illegal mining and gold trade, Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas introduced legislation that places additional U.S. scrutiny on Venezuelan gold transactions for potential money laundering.

“In Venezuela, the gold trade is Maduro’s best and perhaps his last lifeline,” Cruz said in a March 2019 statement. “To cut off this lifeline I’ve introduced a bill ⁠— along with [Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee] Chairman Rubio ⁠— that says: if a country or bank conducts precious metal transactions that are subject to sanctions, as moving gold for Venezuela or Iran would be, that the Secretary of Treasury can take those transactions into account when deciding about a broader conclusion that such country or bank shall be designated as a jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern.”

The legislation was referred to the Senate Banking Committee in February 2019, but it has not advanced.

The UAE also sent 75,000 food parcels and 375,000 pieces of medicine to Colombia in 2019 to help Venezuelan refugees.

But the UAE has not joined the countries like the U.S., European Union and Canada in recognizing Guaidó over Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. The country hasn’t taken a position on Venezuela’s political crisis, with countries like China, Russia and Cuba backing Maduro and the U.S. and others backing Guaidó.

Working as a foreign agent

When Ros-Lehtinen filed as a foreign agent representing the UAE on Jan. 21, she became the latest former lawmaker to cash in as a lobbyist after leaving office.

Ros-Lehtinen and anyone working on behalf of a foreign government’s interests in the United States are required to notify the Justice Department of their activities through the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA.

For years, enforcement of the act was minimal. But that changed in the aftermath of the 2016 election. Former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States after he failed to register as a foreign agent for the Ukrainian government. Former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn retroactively registered as a foreign agent for Turkey after it was revealed he was paid for lobbying work by a Turkish firm with connections to that country’s government.

Craig Holman, a lobbyist with the left-leaning think tank Public Citizen, who specializes in ethics, lobbying and campaign finance rules, said registering as a foreign agent is “very significant” because it means the agent has to keep a detailed record of their contacts on behalf of the foreign government. And that record is public.

“Under FARA, the foreign agent has to essentially keep a diary of everything they’re doing for the foreign principal, who they met, how much money is involved, the work,” Holman said.

All activities on behalf of a foreign government must be recorded as a public record under FARA, including meetings between the foreign agent and U.S. government officials.

Holman said the number of people registered as foreign agents has increased significantly in recent years from around 400 people to between 700 and 800 people after the Justice Department stepped up enforcement of disclosure laws. Essentially, foreign agents function like foreign ambassadors and government officials who want to influence U.S. policy and legislation, but the agent is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident as opposed to a foreign national.

“There’s a public image problem. It carries a negative image to be classified as a foreign agent, even though there are no legal consequences to it,” Holman said.

A 2016 review by Politico found that 114 former members of Congress registered as foreign agents lobbying for foreign governments, companies or think-tanks between 1990 and 2016. Oil-rich Middle Eastern countries like the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar frequently spend millions on foreign agents to influence Washington.

“By hiring a former lawmaker, you get access to members of Congress and the administration that an ambassador might not have,” Holman said.

And foreign agents sometimes advocate for their clients in public. For example, Ros-Lehtinen wrote an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post last week titled: “Qatar’s royals: Up to no good again?” Qatar and the UAE cut off diplomatic relations with each other in 2017, with the UAE accusing Qatar of supporting terrorism and Qatar accusing the UAE of violating its airspace.

Ros-Lehtinen’s lobbying work has drawn scrutiny from at least one Miami Republican: Maria Elvira Salazar, who is running for Ros-Lehtinen’s old seat in 2020. Salazar criticized Ros-Lehtinen for attending the State of the Union as Democratic Rep. Donna Shalala’s guest.

“Ileana is now a lobbyist. Her interests changed,” Salazar said on a radio interview. “They’re from the political class. People are tired of that elite.”

McClatchy DC White House correspondent Michael Wilner contributed to this report.

This story was originally published February 24, 2020 at 6:00 AM.