Mitchell’s Firm Lobbied for Dubai’s Ruler in Camel Jockey Case

[Joanne98]

Source: Bloomberg


Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- George Mitchell, President Barack Obama’s special Middle East troubleshooter, was chairman of a law firm that was paid about $8 million representing Dubai’s ruler in connection with a child-trafficking lawsuit.

The DLA Piper law firm did legal and lobbying work on the case, which alleged that Dubai’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al- Maktoum and another official used children kidnapped from other countries to ride as jockeys in camel races. The firm lobbied federal agencies, members of the U.S. House and about two dozen Senate offices, including those of Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2006 and 2007, according to Justice Department foreign-agent disclosures.

Mitchell, 75, who isn’t a registered lobbyist, didn’t lobby either on this issue or for Dubai generally. DLA Piper partner Bill Minor said in an e-mail that Mitchell, a former Democratic senator from Maine, mainly focused on growth and management at the firm of almost 4,000 attorneys and 65 offices worldwide, and high-profile projects such as an investigation of steroid use in Major League Baseball.

Mitchell’s firm had extensive lobbying clients and offices in the Middle East ranging from the leader of Dubai to a Kuwait construction firm contracting in Iraq. The firm also has offices in Egypt, Oman, Qatar and Abu Dhabi and has an affiliation with a law firm in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Mitchell traveled to Dubai and spoke to the press there about the issue.

Suit Thrown Out

The camel-jockey suit was thrown out after the U.S. Justice Department notified a Miami federal judge that it planned to intervene and argue that al-Maktoum was immune from the suit as a foreign leader.



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aa7hdtvtfYxc&refer=home

[tularetom]

1. I remember when that was a derisive term for Arabs or anyone of Middle Eastern descent

Now you can put it in headlines. What a country.

[acmavm]

2. You can put it in a headline if that's what was actually going on,

someone was riding a camel.

Duh.

[tularetom]

7. I know dat - it just looks funny to see it in print

My son was a smartass 15 year old at the time of the Iran hostage crisis. He picked up the term at school and blurted it out in class one day and for doing so was requested to see the principal. We were informed and had to agree to some sort of sensitivity training for him. It was of course lost on him that Iranians were not nomadic, not Arabs and that very few of them had probably ever seen a camel.

[Baby Snooks]

3. He defended child trafficking?

Who is recommending all of these people to Obama? He was chairman of the firm. So he defended child trafficking. Disgusting.

[sattahipdeep]

4. Krongard?

DLA Piper

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=964907&mesg_id=965213

[Baby Snooks]

5. Unbelievable...

We apparently now have two Bubbas of Arabia.

[Captain Hilts]

6. It doesn't matter. People in DC lobby for all sorts of things they don't believe in.

Al Gore and Ann Richards accepted tobacco money, etc.

[Romulox]

8. If they did it, they believed in "it"--i.e. whoring for the highest bidder. nt