Did the UAE pay for Egypt’s lobbying efforts in the US in 2013? That’s what emails The Intercept got its hands on seem to be suggesting. The report relies on email exchanges between the UAE’s Ambassador to the US, Yousef Otaiba, and officials from the D.C-based public relations and lobbying outfit Glover Park Group, which reveal that the diplomat had been the main liaison with Cairo, which chose the firm “to be one of its public faces in the US capital.” The correspondence purports to show Otaiba telling a GPG official that the UAE had transferred USD 2.7 mn to Cairo, which accounted for the bulk of the USD 3 mn Egypt then paid to the lobbying firm for its work. Otaiba reportedly also approached journalists and think tank staffers in the US to discuss the positive aspects of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s administration, confronting those who were critical and “acting as a sort of de facto ambassador” for Egypt.

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