US Justice Department disclosure confirms Saakashvili’s lobbyists saying they were in contact with US Embassy employee - Ruling party official

Mamuka Mdinaradze, the Executive Secretary of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Wednesday said the documents published on the website of the United States Department of Justice had revealed Evan Elliot, an employee of the United States Embassy in Tbilisi, had been contacted by lobbyists of the imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili.

The comments followed the statement by the Embassy, which on Wednesday said “no one at the US Embassy in Tbilisi has engaged in lobbying on behalf of former President Saakashvili or helped to schedule any meetings for his lobbyists”, and noted “malicious stories alleging or implying that Embassy employees received money from lobbying firms are categorically false and irresponsible”.

In his reaction, Mdinaradze said “[d]id we invent [the name of] Evan Elliott [in the documents]?”, before adding “[u]nder the [US] Foreign Agents Registration Act, he was mentioned in the documents published on the website of the US Department of Justice. We did not need to mention it - they did. Why did they need it?”.

Mdinaradze also said if the information about Elliott's cooperation with Saakashvili's lobbying companies was “false”, it would mean “we must openly say that Saakashvili's lobbyists have written lies” in the document.

If we assume the version that lies were written in the documents of the US Department of Justice, then what are we dealing with? This is an attempt to spoil the relations between the two countries, and was a specific employee of the American Embassy specially mentioned by Saakashvili's lobbyists?”, the ruling party official continued. 

“This information was published on the website of the US Department of Justice, it was written by lobbyists. Now we need to hear an explanation. I would really prefer to believe the Embassy and not Saakashvili's lobbyists. The document mentions there was a contact [with Elliot] on March 6 and 8. If we believe these documents, it can be clearly seen that a specific lobbyist was in contact with this person and talked about various topics”, he concluded.

Published last week, the disclosed information revealed the lobbying company Akerman had been involved in drawing up a draft resolution for the European Parliament that was critical of the Georgian Government around the topic of the imprisonment of Saakashvili.

It also showed the firm had worked to prepare articles about the former President’s health condition for international media, and lobbied US senators to pursue sanctions against Georgia over his alleged ill-treatment in detention.