The Wall Street Journal-20080119-Politics - Economics- Case Shines Spotlight On Advocacy Groups

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Politics & Economics: Case Shines Spotlight On Advocacy Groups

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WASHINGTON -- This past week's indictment of a former congressman for aiding an Islamic charity with alleged ties to al Qaeda has cast a spotlight on a little-known corner of the Washington lobbying community: advocates who aid groups accused of helping terrorists.

The Bush administration's decision in late 2001 to declare legal and financial war on groups thought to aid sponsors of terror has generated sanctions against a wide swath of organizations and individuals. More than 475 entities and people have had their assets frozen after being named Specially Designated Global Terrorists under an executive order signed by the president after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, for instance. Only about a dozen have been removed from the list.

As a result, many of those named have sought professional help to extract themselves from government scrutiny. And that has created a kind of cottage industry for a small group of professional advocates willing to confront the unique occupational hazards that come with helping groups the U.S. sees as the bad guys.

"There's a whole trade association practically," says attorney Wendell Belew, the unofficial dean of the Islamic charity bar, who represents a group of charities in Saudi Arabia.

One of those who took up the cause was Mark Siljander, the former congressman indicted this past week. Mr. Siljander, a Republican and an evangelical Christian who left office in 1987, formed a lobbying firm, Global Strategies Inc., that is based in Great Falls, Va., just outside Washington.

Mr. Siljander was hired in 2004 by the Islamic American Relief Agency of Columbia, Mo., to help the group get off a list of nonprofits under investigation by the Senate Finance Committee for possible links to terror, a federal indictment alleges. (The group was later added to the administration's terror-supporters list.) He allegedly conspired with the charity -- which the government says aided suspected terrorists -- to hide the source of his fees.

"We didn't target Congressman Siljander," John F. Wood, the U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo., said in an interview Friday. "We followed the money, and the money led us to Mark Siljander."

Mr. Siljander's attorney, James R. Hobbs, said his client "vehemently denies" any wrongdoing and will plead not guilty at an arraignment scheduled for Jan. 28 in federal court in Kansas City.

Specifically, the indictment charges that Mr. Siljander was compensated with about $50,000 stolen by the charity from a project for the U.S. Agency for International Development. The 57-year-old lobbyist participated in a series of financial maneuvers designed to obscure the origin of this money, the indictment charges.

Later, according to prosecutors, he obstructed the investigation when he lied to FBI agents, saying he hadn't been hired to do any lobbying and that the $50,000 was a charitable donation intended to help him in writing a book about bridging the gap between Islam and Christianity. As a politician, Mr. Siljander cultivated conservative Christian support and was known as a strong opponent of abortion and homosexuality.

The organization that Mr. Siljander was aiding and five of its former officers have been charged with sending about $130,000 to Pakistan, purportedly for an orphanage controlled by the Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who has been labeled a terrorist by the U.S. government. Prosecutors also accuse the charity of transferring funds to Iraq in violation of federal sanctions. The defendants, who have denied wrongdoing, haven't been charged with directly supporting or financing terrorism.

Washington's best-known lobbying firms have largely steered clear of aid groups and people targeted for terror ties, either for fear of controversy or because many of those accused don't have deep pockets. That has led Islamic charities and others to lesser-known advocates, such as Mr. Siljander, to pursue their cause.

Other examples include former U.S. Rep. John W. Bryant; Edward Abington, a former top State Department official specializing in the Middle East; and Frank Anderson, a former CIA operative who has expressed skepticism as an expert witness in court about aspects of the Bush administration's domestic "war on terrorism."

One problem some advocates face, as Mr. Siljander now knows, is getting paid. Under federal law, it is illegal for an American to accept fees from any organization that the Treasury Department has designated a terrorism supporter.

"As one of my friends who does work in this area says, I specialize in pro bono law," Mr. Belew says. "If you do represent a designated entity, it can be very hard to get paid."

There are only two ways around the law: getting a license from Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which Mr. Belew and others assert is an onerous process; or accept payment from another source.

As a result, the fee situation can often be murky. Mr. Belew says he is compensated for his lobbying work via direct transfers from the Friends of Charities Association, which is based in Riyadh. He says he doesn't know exactly where the group gets its cash, but that it comes from dues and donations. (None of his paying clients, he hastens to add, is on the Treasury Department list.)

Mr. Belew, a federal budget expert from Georgia, now meets with Saudi billionaires on his trips to the Middle East. He also has brought a potentially precedent-setting suit against the U.S. government over its secret warrantless wiretapping program, which captured some of his own conversations with his Saudi clients.

Several years ago, a Treasury Department official mistakenly mailed Mr. Belew some transcripts of the wiretaps. That evidence makes him and an associate possibly the only Americans in a legal position to challenge the warrantless wiretap program.

Mr. Belew says he is making about the same amount of money lobbying these days as he did before the Sept. 11 attacks, when he worked for a more traditional roster of trade groups and other clients. The son of a senior Southern Baptist Church official who sided with African Americans in the civil-rights conflicts of the 1960s, Mr. Belew sees himself at the center of a similar conflict.

"I've been fortunate enough to be given a second chance at an important time in history -- a time that is critical to the security of the U.S. -- to take a stand for the traditional Anglo-American idea of justice and fairness," he said.

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