Washington – President George Manneh Weah’s government has hired a former operative for Pro-Trump Super Pac to lobby for his administration in Washington.
Rodney D. Sieh, [email protected]
Politico which broke the news Tuesday said Jake Menges will be paid $25,000 a month.
Menges worked for a super PAC backing President Donald Trump during the 2016 election, will lobby on the administration’s behalf in Washington.
Menges, a former aide to Rudy Giuliani who worked for Great America PAC in 2016, is now a senior director at Greenberg Traurig, the law and lobbying firm.
He’ll offer “business development and government affairs advice” to Liberia’s government, including “representation before the leaders of the House and Senate as well as representatives in the Department of Commerce, Transportation, Treasury, Agriculture and Energy,” according to a contract filed with the Justice Department.
Menges has been on the front lines of government and politics for over 25 years, starting his career in the bare knuckle world of Presidential retail politics in New Hampshire. Prior to joining Greenberg Traurig, Jake served as the political director for the Great America PAC, the largest and most successful independent expenditure created to help get President Donald J. Trump elected. Earlier in the 2015 presidential primary cycle, Jake served as a political advisor to Dr. Ben Carson. He has developed a reputation for getting tough jobs done, while earning respect on both sides of the aisle and in the business community. As a political consultant, Jake has been involved with helping to elect Governors, Senators and over a dozen Members of the US House. He has also been involved with multiple Super PACs that elected GOP candidates in blue states.
In signing Menges, the Weah administration is hoping to get a strong window to President Trump, who President Weah has been trying to meet since winning the presidency.
Menge’s career in government began as Director of Intergovernmental and Legislative Affairs and Deputy Chief of Staff to New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, where he served as one of the youngest cabinet members in New York City history. Jake was the Chief lobbyist for the City of New York overseeing all federal, state and city legislative and lobbying efforts.
The signing of Mendes has likely brought to an end the Weah administration ties to Riva Levinson, who lobbied in a similar role for former President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf for the last twelve years.
Levinson, credited for being the engine behind ex-president Sirleaf’s international public relations, branding and global marketing propaganda, found her way back into Liberia’s politics – shortly after Weah won the presidency in2017.
Last September, FrontPageAfrica Document obtained and published documents showing the Weah’s administration had hired KRL International LLC, a Washington DC-based communications and government relations firm that focuses on the world’s emerging markets.
That deal between the government and KRL International was consummated on August 22, 2018 and signed on behalf of the government by Foreign Minister Gbehzohngar Milton Findley while Jeffery Haymaker, the Chief Financial Officer, signed on behalf of his firm.
In signing Menges, the Weah administration is hoping to get a strong window to President Trump, who President Weah has been trying to meet since winning the presidency.
The United States of America and Liberia have a longstanding historical relationship dating back to founding of Liberia. At least eight of its former presidents were born in the United States of America. The capital, Monrovia, was named after the fifth U.S. President James Monroe and so are many of its cities or townships which are named after places in the United States. Moreover, the United States has been Liberia’s largest source of donor support over the years.
Levinson was one of the quiet drivers in Liberia’s progress during her regime. In an interview with Forbes in 2016, Levinson revealed how she first encountered Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Her relationship with Pres. Sirleaf is dated back to July 1996 when she was working at the United Nations, waiting for the political space to open up so she could return home.
Former President Sirleaf never had a better image in her home country, but was internationally acclaimed, wining several international awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 just few months to that year’s presidential election.
As an opposition, Weah’s Congress for Democratic Change took Sirleaf for spending in 2014, more than US$200 million in lobbying fees to foreign firms in the United States. Despite refuting those allegations and informing the House of Representatives that it was “preposterous” for anyone to believe that her government could spend such an amount, the lobbying tag left a stain on Sirleaf’s legacy.
Sirleaf did state that only Levinson’s KRL lobbied on behalf of Liberia from 2007 to 2013 and was paid a total of a little over $368,000.
Political observers say, ditching Levinson for Menges is a sign that Weah, who received a lot of support from the former President Sirleaf may be signaling a full disengagement from the Sirleaf administration, especially in the wake of the recent embarrassing arrest of her son, Charles Sirleaf, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Liberia linked to the probe of the missing LD16 Billion scandal.