Official's lobbyist past no obstacle

Despite Obama ban, Cassidy lobbyist lands key role overseeing cash to former client.

25 Jan 2010 // Robin Raphel's resume made her a strong candidate to oversee more than a billion dollars in nonmilitary aid to Pakistan.

The retired foreign service veteran had decades of experience, much of it involving Pakistan and South Asia. President Bill Clinton tapped Raphel to be his point person on South Asia policy. Later, during the Bush administration, she monitored federal spending in Iraq.

But there was one credential the State Department has downplayed since hiring her. For two years, Raphel had been working as a lobbyist for Cassidy & Associates. One of her clients: Pakistan. She lobbied Congress and the State Department for the country on issues such as Afghan policy, Pakistan's relations with India, judicial independence and U.S. perceptions and congressional views of the Pakistan government.

In fact, in the weeks before starting the State Department job, Raphel visited the agency at least seven times for meetings on behalf of Pakistan, lobbying disclosure records show. One of those meetings occurred on July 31, the date Cassidy reported was her last day at the firm, and the same day the State Department said she was sworn in. (The State Department disputes the accuracy of Cassidy's lobbying records; Cassidy said they believe the filings are accurate and are based on information supplied by Raphel.)

And since becoming the coordinator for economic and development assistance in Pakistan, lobby records show Raphel has exchanged e-mails with her former Cassidy colleagues on issues involving the country.

For most new administrations, the lobbying work might be viewed as a fairly typical move for an experienced Washington hand like Raphel. But under President Barack Obama, lobbyists have been targeted with ethics restrictions aimed at keeping them from holding jobs in the administration. During the campaign, the president said no lobbyists would work in his White House and after taking office, Obama issued an executive order limiting their hiring (though public waivers have been given in a few circumstances).

But the ban only covers political appointees, leaving gaps in the hiring process that allow lobbyists into other high-ranking jobs. In Raphel's case, State Department officials brought Raphel into the department using a temporary appointment that isn't subject to the executive order. In September, the State Department changed her status, giving her a different appointment with a yearlong commitment.

"I believe that this is a qualified person [and it] may well be a positive thing for America that she has this job," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group. "But they have run into the problem of their own ethics rules, and they don't like to grant the waivers anymore because they take a hit when they grant a waiver. They looked for way to hire this woman and say, 'See, we don't have to grant a waiver.' "
RAPHEL AND THE RULES

Raphel, 62, who is based in Islamabad, did not respond to requests for an interview. The White House did not comment. Earlier this month, the State Department acknowledged that Raphel had received and responded to at least three e-mails from former colleagues at Cassidy regarding Pakistan after she officially went on the department payroll Aug. 3. The department said it would tighten oversight of her interactions with her former employer.

The State Department "has reviewed this with Ambassador Raphel," said State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley, adding that she characterized the e-mails with Cassidy as being polite. "The information she provided, in her judgment, is inconsequential." But, Crowley said, "We recognize that perceptions matter....She will seek guidance from the department before she replies to any similar contacts in the future."

Cassidy spokesman Tom Alexander said in an e-mail late last month that the firm had "contacted Ambassador Raphel to discuss the status of" an aid bill and "to seek clarification of statements she had made to the press."

Raphel is subject to conflict-of-interest regulations that apply to all executive branch employees. One rule requires employees to avoid matters that would "cause a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts to question his impartiality" without first receiving approval from an agency designee. Matters involving former employers and consulting clients from within the past year are covered by the rule.The State Department has not responded to questions asking whether Raphel violated the rule.

Cassidy's latest lobbying reports filed with the Justice Department show that, in the two months leading up to the new job, Raphel went to more than 20 meetings on Pakistan's behalf at the State Department, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Brookings Institution, among other places. The reports don't disclose with whom she met or what was discussed. Cassidy's Alexander said in November that Raphel "was not engaging in political or advocacy activities on behalf of our client and was instead assisting in a very limited and brief strategy development and information-gathering phase."

The distinction is important to State Department officials. Raphel lobbied for Pakistan in 2007, when Cassidy briefly represented the country. Pakistan hired Cassidy again in May 2009, signing a $702,000-a-year contract. Even though Raphel was still working at the firm and attending meetings on Pakistan's behalf, her role was officially that of information gatherer and strategist. In other words, under the definition in the law she wasn't technically lobbying this time.

"We knew that she, for a very brief time, represented the government of Pakistan in 2007," Crowley said. "We know that she had some 40 meetings...as a consultant to Cassidy. We went through all of that. We know she was working as a consultant. We know that in that capacity she was advising Cassidy on issues related to Pakistan. She was not lobbying."
LOBBY BAN LOOPHOLE

Raphel's case points to holes in one of the Obama administration's most visible — and highly touted — promises to change how business gets done in Washington.

The president's executive order includes a two-year ban preventing political appointees from participating in any matter related to former clients or employers, as well as restrictions to prevent administration officials who leave from lobbying former colleagues. It allows for some exceptions through a public waiver process, but in general the executive order severely limits lobbyists' ability to work for agencies they've lobbied.

The order applies to agencies across the executive branch, including the State Department. But its reach is confined to political appointees, a class that includes all jobs requiring Senate confirmation and an array of other senior posts throughout the federal government. It doesn't cover anyone hired into a career position or a "limited non-career appointment" such as the one that the State Department gave Raphel.

Raphelwas brought aboard as a special government employee, an appointment that allows someone to work no more than 130 days in a year. It is commonly used, for instance, for appointees to advisory bodies or government boards. On Sept. 20, according to the State Department, Raphel was given a limited non-career appointment with the foreign service, which gives her the status and rank of a foreign service officer. The appointment is for one year, but can be renewed for up to five years. Her salary is $158,050 a year.

Crowley said that Raphel's appointment was not reviewed or approved by the White House. "The entire hiring process occurred here at the State Department," he said in an e-mail.

Crowley said this type of appointment is used when the State Department needs to find someone from the private sector with specific expertise for a job that has a limited lifespan. The State Department has also used it in the case of some civilians recently sent to Afghanistan as part of the surge strategy, he said.

"She is in Pakistan for a very specific purpose, and that's the only purpose," Crowley said. "It's a category of employment that allows us to go out into the private sector."
CASSIDY'S PAKISTAN CONTRACT

Pakistan hired Cassidy last year to assess Pakistan's standing among "key U.S. decision makers," which includes members of Congress and State Department officials, according to the contract the firm filed with the Department of Justice. After doing so, Cassidy was then to design an outreach strategy for Pakistan that would, the reports say, help promote U.S. policy that favors Pakistan's specific goals. It doesn't specify what those goals are. The current contract is led by Gregg Hartley, Cassidy's vice chairman and chief operating officer.

Since filing the new contract, Cassidy has reported efforts to monitor, track and evaluate the prospects of legislation related to Pakistan. That includes a bill to authorize $7.5 billion in aid to the country during the next five years and economic development legislation that would give the president authority to establish "Reconstruction Opportunity Zones" in Pakistan's frontier area with Afghanistan.

As Cassidy began working the Hill and the administration on behalf of Pakistan last summer, the State Department was searching for someone who could oversee a change in the way U.S. money is dispersed within the country. Instead of working through American contractors and nongovernmental organizations, State Department spokesman Crowley said the administration will be "more assertively working through the Pakistani government and working through Pakistani institutions." Nonmilitary aid to Pakistan in fiscal year 2009 totaled $1.25 billion, according to the State Department.

"When we looked around to see who knows Pakistan, Robin Raphel came to mind," said Crowley, adding that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, were involved in filling the post.

Before joining Cassidy in 2007, Raphel had spent most of her career in the federal government and had deep ties to Pakistan. During the Clinton administration, she was the first person ever to hold the job of assistant secretary of state for South Asia. Raphel was the ambassador to Tunisia in the late 1990s.

Crowley said State Department officials also liked the fact that she had worked in Iraq, where she was the deputy inspector general in the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.

Paula Newberg, director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, said "your subset is going to be really small" for a position that requires substantial experience administering American aid, a history of holding senior diplomatic positions and familiarity with South Asia. Newberg said she knows Raphel, but declined to comment directly on her appointment.

Crowley said Raphel's lobbying "obviously" came up as she was vetted for the job. "When we considered hiring Robin, we took into account everything that she's done going back a decade," he said. "We knew and explored fully with her what she was doing as a consultant for Cassidy immediately prior to her appointment."

Ethics lawyers were brought in, Crowley said, and "We satisfied ourselves that her unique expertise and experience and ability to do what we needed to do with respect to assistance to Pakistan — the benefit of bringing her back into government far outweighed legitimate questions of a conflict of interest that we understood, that we explored fully."

When asked about Raphel's appointment and the process used by the State Department, ethics and watchdog groups — many of whom have issued glowing reviews of the Obama administration's efforts to restrict lobbyists' influence — were divided. Sarah Dufendach of Common Cause, a group that promotes open government, said she didn't see any problems with the way Raphel was hired.

Fred Wertheimer, president of Dem­ocracy 21, said the State Department appears to have tried to follow a process akin to the one required for a waiver from the ban, weighing Raphel's possible conflicts against the value of hiring her. Still, he said, "she ought to just avoid contact with her former employer, period, and eliminate any potential problems."

But Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said the State Department should have hired Raphel after publicly obtaining a waiver from the lobbying ban. "When politicians rely on these kind of technicalities, Americans become suspicious because anyone looking at this woman would say she's the person for whom the revolving door ban was intended to apply," Sloan said.

But people like Raphel, who have specialized experience, are also "why they have a waiver."

Carrie Levine may be contacted at clevine@alm.com.