When Egypt went to work to establish the credibility of its repressive government in Washington, it had help from the United Arab Emirates Ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al Otaiba. Emails obtained by The Intercept show that Otaiba and the UAE essentially picked up the tab for Egypt’s lobbyists in Washington, D.C. Egypt in 2013 enlisted the Glover Park Group, a top D.C. public relations and lobbying firm founded by former Clinton White House and Democratic Party officials, to be one of its public faces in the U.S. capital. In a September 2015 memo to Otaiba, GPG described its work for Egypt as designed to influence both the U.S. government and the “echo chamber” of Washington think tanks and news media in order to influence American policy. The email exchanges provided to The Intercept were discovered in a cache of correspondence pilfered from Otaiba’s Hotmail account, which he used regularly for official business.

Earlier that year, Richard Mintz of the Harbour Group, a firm that has long worked as a lobbyist for the UAE, wrote an email to Otaiba listing GPG’s outstanding bill on the Egypt file — a whopping $2,735,343. GPG is no stranger to the Harbour Group — GPG’s Managing Director Joel Johnson co-founded the Harbour Group in 2001 and worked there until joining GPG in 2005.

Mintz noted to Otaiba that GPG would “like to get paid directly by UAE. But they are still waiting on a final opinion from the FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] lawyers to see if it’s possible.” Mintz, who is Otaiba’s public relations adviser, did not respond to requests for comment.

Six months later, Otaiba wrote to Johnson, informing him that the UAE had transferred $2.7 million to Cairo, the bulk of the $3 million payment Egypt later made to the lobbying firm. As of this writing, GPG has not returned multiple requests for comment about the UAE’s role in paying for the firm’s Egypt lobbying.

Lobbying Think Tanks and the Press on Behalf of Sisi The emails obtained by The Intercept also show Otaiba lecturing journalists and think tank staffers on the benefits of repressive leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s rule, acting as a sort of de facto second ambassador for the country. Sisi, as chief general of the Egyptian army, led a 2013 coup against then-President Mohamed Morsi. The military man was elected president with 97 percent of the vote in a 2014 election that was largely decried as undemocratic. The UAE and Saudi Arabia were chief backers of the military takeover, providing billions of dollars in support to Egypt. When Politico’s Michael Crowley penned a piece titled “Trump to welcome Egypt’s dictator” in April 2017 with quotes from human rights experts about Sisi’s brutal crackdown, Otaiba wrote him an email accusing him of having “something against Sisi,” despite being “one of the smartest and most thoughtful journalists in the business.” He specifically objected to Crowley’s citation of Tom Malinowski, a former Obama administration diplomat who also served as Human Rights Watch’s Washington director from 2001 to 2013. (Human Rights Watch has issued several damning reports about Egypt in recent years, including one that called for an investigation into Sisi’s role in the 2013 mass killings of more than 1,000 protesters in what “probably amounts to crimes against humanity.” Sisi was Egypt’s minister of defense at the time of the killings.) Crowley pushed back, warning that Sisi’s crackdowns against Egyptian civil society could produce more radicalization. The two went back and forth, and when they concluded, Otaiba forwarded the email chain to U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell. “FYI. This is generally what we’re up against,” he wrote. Crowley declined to comment on his exchanges with Otaiba.

In the think-tank world, Otaiba found at least one ally sympathetic to the UAE’s line on Egypt: Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress. Days after Sisi met with President Donald Trump in Washington, Katulis offered the ambassador a detailed Egypt lobbying agenda to present to the White House through Powell. In that April 2017 correspondence, Katulis advised Otaiba that the Trump administration would likely ask Egypt to make security and counterterrorism a “top priority” and would seek dialogue on trade and investment. The U.S. administration would also likely ask Egypt to release some political prisoners, who had become “unnecessary distraction from the important work,” Katulis noted. (Two weeks later, the Egyptian government released Aya Hijazi, an Egyptian-American aid worker accused of child abuse and human trafficking, from custody after three years of detention. Hijazi’s case was typical of Sisi’s crackdown on aid groups.) Katulis also suggested the UAE ask the Trump administration to appoint a U.S. ambassador to Egypt, preferably someone the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Powell trust, suggesting the Washington Institute for Near East Peace’s Eric Trager because of his strong rapport with Egypt. Finally, Katulis suggested that the UAE ask the White House to appoint a staffer to deal with dissidents in Congress, as there is “bipartisan pushback on Egypt — a concerted Hill outreach won’t kill that, but it can help navigate it.” The CAP fellow ended his note by telling Otaiba that Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis trusts him and suggested that the ambassador introduce Katulis to Powell.

CAP (where I worked from 2009 to 2012) is a Democratic Party-aligned think tank that is among the most critical of Trump. Yet Katulis’s pointers to Otaiba, who recently pledged $700,000 to the think tank, depart from Democrats’ typical stance on U.S. policy toward Egypt. Since Sisi assumed power, Democrats have maintained a practical approach on relations with Egypt, emphasizing the country’s regional importance for U.S. national security while consistently criticizing the Sisi regime for its human rights abuses. Former President Barack Obama never invited Sisi to the White House. But while Katulis was sympathetic to Otaiba’s position on Egypt, others pushed back. Reagan and Bush administration alumnus Elliott Abrams, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, testified about Egypt at a Capitol Hill hearing in April. The day before his testimony, Otaiba lobbied Abrams, telling him that “the trump approach with sisi is working.” Abrams wasn’t convinced, saying Sisi had “created a jihadi manufacturing plant” through his suppression of dissent.