A man inspects a house a day after it was hit by airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition that left six people killed and more than 40 others injured on May 17, 2019 in Sana’a, Yemen. (Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images)

A U.S. Air Force veteran has registered as a foreign agent to represent the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as President Donald Trump invokes the Arms Export Control Act, bypassing Congress to unfreeze arms sales to the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

A bipartisan effort to end American support to the Saudi, Emirati coalition passed both the House and Senate earlier in 2018, yet failed to overcome a veto by President Trump. However, members of Congress are able to place “holds” on a number of proposed sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE — a roadblock that Trump is now prepared to circumvent.

These blocked sales attracted the interest of lobbyists seeking to reopen the flow of weapons to the Persian Gulf countries. Government relations firm American Defense International (ADI) has represented the UAE since 2018, according to FARA filings found using OpenSecret’s Foreign Lobby Watch tool. On May 21, 2019, Todd Harmer, senior vice president at ADI, registered as a foreign agent for the UAE.

According to a biography on the ADI website, Harmer is a veteran of the Air Force where he served in several high-ranking positions including as Commander of the 63rd Fighter Squadron, Chief of the Commander’s Action Group for United States Forces in Iraq and as the Air Force Legislative Liaison for the House of Representatives.

Along with his registration as a foreign agent for the UAE, Harmer currently lobbies for a number of weapons contractors. In 2019, some of his powerful clients include General Dynamics, builders of the Abrams battle tank, heavy machine guns and grenade launchers; Raytheon, which manufactures a number of missiles and missile defense systems; notable gun manufacturer SIG Sauer, among several others.

A May 3 press release from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced the proposed sale of 452 Patriot missiles to the UAE for around $2.7 billion. According to the press release, the contractor for the missile system is Raytheon, one of Harmer’s other clients.

Harmer joins an ADI team which lobbies for the UAE on U.S. policy towards “[UAE’s] engagement in Yemen, military sales from the United States and relationship with the United States.” In another FARA form, ADI describes its mission clearly as working to build American support for “arms transfers.”

He will be representing the UAE alongside three other previously-registered members of the ADI firm — Michael Herson, president and CEO of ADI who served in the Defense Department in the early 1990s, David Myers, a former aide to Sens. Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.) and Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), and Bonnie Shindelman, chief of staff at ADI.

From August 2018 through the end of January 2019, ADI received $270,000 in payment for their services.

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Through January 2019, ADI lobbyists had a series of meetings with congressional offices on the “situation in Yemen.” This included several meetings with high-ranking House Foreign Affairs member Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) and House Foreign Affairs Chair Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), along with staff members for Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), minority chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

In a May 23 statement regarding the news reports on the Trump administration’s desire to bypass Congress and revive the arms sales to UAE and Saudi Arabia, Menendez expressed concern that “the possible consequences of this will ultimately jeopardize the ability of the U.S. defense industry to export arms in a manner both expeditious and responsible.”

Members of Congress have blocked arms deals between U.S. and the UAE because of UAE’s alliance with Saudi Arabia in the Yemen Civil War. The war in Yemen is currently considered by the United Nations as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world as around 14 million Yemenis face famine and hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed by both sides. UAE forces have been active in the ground war against the Iranian-linked Houthi rebels, creating a series of private armies and military bases throughout Yemen.

The UN condemned a variety of violations of international law and human rights abuses conducted by both the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the rest of their coalition, along with those on the Houthi rebel side. The UN found instances of torture in prisons controlled by the UAE, along with sexual violence committed by UAE personnel against detainees. The report also states that individuals in the coalition, including those from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have committed actions that “may amount to war crimes.”

The U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia and UAE are particularly controversial, in part because some of the U.S.-sold weapons have been distributed by coalition members to third parties such as al Qaeda-backed fighters and other extremist militias fighting in Yemen.

The desire by the Trump administration to reopen the deals may be in part because of the renewed tensions with Iran. The Saudi and Gulf States coalition has been militarily opposing the Iranian-backed Houthis for several years and the U.S. has recently taken an aggressive posture against alleged Iranian threats in the region.

On May 24, the Pentagon said it would deploy 1,500 U.S. troops to the Middle East in the coming weeks. The deployment follows the movement of an aircraft carrier strike group, along with aircraft, into areas near Iran earlier in May.

Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Menendez and ADI did not respond to requests for comment by press time.



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