Why Trump-connected lobbyists are working with Mnangagwa

Like Ballard, Gotham Government Relations and Communications, a New York lobbying firm, once counted Trump as a client and quickly opened a Washington office after his victory. Gotham started lobbying the White House late last year on behalf of a company looking to persuade Trump to back its plan to send private security forces to Libya to facilitate oil exploration, according to Brad Gerstman, a partner at the firm.

No lobbying shop with Trump connections has signed more foreign governments as clients than an obscure firm called Sonoran Policy Group.

Robert Stryk, who runs the firm, never worked on Trump’s campaign, but he hired two former Trump campaign staffers after the 2016 election. (Both have since left.)

Stryk helped set up a phone call between Trump and New Zealand’s prime minister in the chaotic weeks after the election and later persuaded New Zealand’s government to hire his firm after throwing a lavish inaugural party at the New Zealand Embassy.

The New York Times Magazine chronicled his ascent, along with the activities of Lewandowski and other consultants and lobbyists with administration connections, in a piece headlined “How to Get Rich in Trump’s Washington”.

Stryk has cut the figure of someone who’s gotten rich. He has spent freely on cigars, flights on private planes and long dinners in the private upstairs room of Café Milano in Georgetown with bills that ran to thousands of dollars, according to three people familiar with the firm.

He built a wet bar in SPG’s Georgetown office, boasted of plans to open a London office and said he wanted to build a $200 million-a-year business.

Stryk started lobbying last year for the Democratic Republic of Congo, a repressive regime accused of human rights abuses that Ballard and Avenue had turned down when representatives of the country tried to hire them, according to Ballard and Avenue lobbyists.

(Avenue subsequently agreed to lobby for the government of Felix Tshisekedi, the country’s new president, after he was elected in January.)

The DRC paid Stryk’s firm nearly $1.5 million last year, according to Justice Department disclosures. SPG registered to lobby for the country as a subcontractor to an Israeli firm, the Mer Group. While SPG remains registered, Stryk said he’s no longer working for the country.

SPG tried, among other efforts, to broker meetings between Congolese officials and the Trump administration, including an attempt last year to set up a meeting between Vice President Mike Pence and Joseph Kabila, then the DRC’s president, according to a disclosure report. The meeting never happened, an official in the vice president’s office said.

Stryk was unapologetic about his work for clients with tarnished reputations such as the DRC and Somalia in an interview with POLITICO last year, saying he had come to realize they needed his help more than wealthier nations.

“These are the places that need us the most,” Stryk said. “New Zealand doesn’t need us. They need us.”- Politico

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