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WASHINGTON – Dan Coats cares more about the interests of foreign governments than of Hoosiers, a Democratic spokeswoman said Monday, citing the work Coats’ former law firm did for India, Yemen and other countries in 2000 and 2001.
Coats, a member of Congress in the 1980s and 1990s, is collecting signatures to get on the Republican primary ballot. The GOP nominee will run against two-term incumbent Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.
After leaving office in 1998, Coats became a lobbyist and was ambassador to Germany for 3 1/2 years. During 2000 and 2001, the firm he worked for registered as a foreign agent for Ethiopia, Taiwan, India, Montenegro, Cyprus, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
However, Coats’ work was solely for India and involved contacting several lawmakers to ask that the prime minister of India be allowed to address a joint session of Congress.
“His activities with respect to India were solely limited to these contacts,” according to a report the law firm filed. “He took no position on substantive issues, and he does not intend to undertake any further activities for India.”
Nonetheless, Hoosiers should be concerned, said Deirdre Murphy, press secretary for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
“News reports that elite lobbyist Dan Coats was a registered foreign agent and lobbied on behalf of a foreign government raise all sorts of red flags,” she said. “As a foreign agent, Coats’ job was to look out for the interests of foreign countries, not the United States. With all his lobbying for special interests, Hoosiers can only come to the conclusion that Coats stands with foreign countries and Wall Street banks, not with them.”
The committee’s statement was the latest in a series of hard-hitting allegations against Coats isued by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and clearly aimed at making Coats have second thoughts about entering the campaign. Four other Republicans, including state Sen. Marlin Stutzman and a former congressman, John Hostettler, are vying for the GOP nomination. Coats’ possible candidacy has not prompted any of them to withdraw. But none of the other candidates has drawn the kind of reaction from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee as Coats has.
Coats did not immediately respond to questions about his lobbying activities. However, Coats’ spokesman, Kevin Kellems, said, “There’s a reason Democrats are throwing so much mud so early against a very decent man Hoosiers respect and twice elected statewide: They are nervous about Sen. Bayh’s recent support for the president’s extreme health care agenda and the fact that Evan hasn’t had a competitive election in decades.”
Coats worked for Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand, a well-established lobbying firm, until mid-2001 when he was nominated to be ambassador to Germany. When he returned to the U.S., Coats joined a different law-lobbying firm.
It is not uncommon for members of Congress to become lobbyists when they leave office. For instance, Bayh’s father, also a former senator, is a lobbyist. His firm, Venable, is a registered foreign agent for the Hong Kong Development Council and Venezuela. According to reports that U.S. firms must file with the Justice Department when they work on behalf of foreign governments, Birch Bayh works on the Hong Kong account but does no work for Venezuela. The reports cover the first half of 2009.
Murphy did not answer directly when asked whether working for a lobbying firm that has foreign clients should disqualify a person from serving in Congress.
“As a member of that firm,” she said of Coats, “he is involved in that work and is taking money from that firm.”
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee pointed out that Yemen is “a central headquarters for al Qaeda. The Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, spent months in Yemen prior to his failed terrorist attack over the United States learning from al Qaeda. During the time that Coats was a registered foreign lobbyist, his firm brought in over $4 million from foreign governments.”
According to the reports filed with the Justice Department, Verner, Liipfert said its work for Yemen involved “political and economic matters in the United States and abroad, including disputes between Yemini parties and U.S. parties, and boundary issues.” It did not indicate any contact was made with members of Congress or the Clinton or Bush administrations on behalf of Yemen.
Coats was not a partner in the firm.
While he worked there, Coats’ clients included the trade association for the pharmaceutical industry, a defense contractor, the “I Have a Dream” Foundation, a foundation working on kidney disease research, Amgen and General Electric.
