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Shkruar nga Pamfleti
On January 20, 2017, Ilir Meta shared a photo with Petri Vasili. They were in Washington to attend the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Meta was in the last days as Speaker of the Assembly. In the announcement distributed by the Assembly, it was stated that he was in Washington as "invited to the official ceremony by the Republican leaders of the US Congress and Senate".
The media near the LSI said that "the presence of Meta and Vasili at the inauguration ceremony of Trump has also proven the "old" acquaintances of the highest officials of the LSI with the highest officials of the new administration of Donald Trump". In their articles, these media recalled a meeting organized in Washington between Ilir Meta and Mike Pence in 2013. Pence was a congressman at the time, while in 2017 he was elected as Vice President.
But the truth is that there are no 'old acquaintances' behind the photo of Ilir Meta and Petri Vasili from the inauguration ceremony of Donald Trump.
Behind them are thousands of dollars, which SPAK investigators suspect Meta paid to lobby on behalf of LSI and his personal name in Washington.
According to the documents submitted to the American authorities, Meta has paid about 700 thousand dollars to the company McKeon Group. 90,000 dollars were paid by lawyer Iraklis Fidetzis, while another 600,000 dollars were paid by Fidetzis, but through the company "Dorelita Limited", registered as offshore in Cyprus.
The first lobbying contract was signed by Iraklis Fidetzis on behalf of LSI and Ilir Meta. Fidetzis is a controversial lobbyist, lawyer by profession, of Greek origin and American citizenship. The contract provided for the provision of an invitation to Ilir Meta as a participant in the inauguration of Donald Trump, the organization of meetings with legislators and other leaders of the American administration in Washington during this ceremony and after January 20, 2017, the development and promotion of good relations with the administration of under Donald Trump and the US Congress.
In February 2017, a month and a half after the entry into force of the lobbying contract signed directly with LSI and Ilir Meta, McKeon Group, according to the documentation submitted to the American authorities, announces the withdrawal from the contract.
When this contract was signed, Ilir Meta was still the Speaker of the Assembly. The news of his lobbying in Washington spread in Albania. The sudden termination of the contract, according to which LSI and Meta paid the American company 15 thousand dollars per month, coincides with the period when his name was being catapulted to the Presidency. Under these conditions, lobbying the American Congress as President of the country would constitute a precedent bordering on scandal.
However, Meta terminated the first contract with McKeon Group, but not the cooperation with this office. After this "withdrawal", McKeon Group, according to the documents submitted to the Department of Justice, has signed another second lobbying contract, this time with the company "Dorelita Limited".
The contract was signed on March 24, 2017. According to the contract, the group was tasked to lobby for 6 months on behalf of the company "Dorelita Limited" and individuals connected to it.
But who are the individuals associated with it?
The company "Dorelita Limited" is registered in Cyprus, known as a fiscal haven. Its executive director is precisely Iraklis Fidetzis, the lawyer who represented Ilir Meta in the first canceled contract.
The investigators suspect that Ilir Meta himself is behind this company.
The second contract had a term of six months and the company "Dorelita Limited" paid 50 thousand dollars per month, while there is a clause that also includes a payment for the month of February, although the agreement between the parties was signed on March 24, while the first half of February, the first contract signed between McKeon and LSI of Meta was in force.
In addition, the Dorelita company is also charged with other expenses of the lobbying company, such as travel, hotels, lunches and dinners that are organized in order to implement the signed contract. In total, together with these costs, the Dorelita company has paid about 600 thousand dollars to the McKeon Group.
The object of the second contract is to lobby Congress and the administration of President Trump on behalf of the Dorelita company and its clients. Lobbying would be done through 'phone calls, postal messages, meetings and presentations of the customers behind the company'.
With the contract signed, McKeon Group has started lobbying meetings. From April 11 to April 28, the day before Ilir Meta was elected President in the Assembly with 87 votes in favor, McKeon Group declares that it has made at least 28 contacts in the Senate, Congress and with "Homeland Security" to introduce clients own, behind the company "Dorelita Limited".
The name of the clients is not made public, but some of the contacts are the same that the lobbying office contacted on behalf of LSI and Ilir Meta according to the first lobbying contract, canceled on February 14. One of them is Congressman Ed Royce. Ilir Meta met with him on January 20, 2017, when he was in Washington to attend the inauguration ceremony of Donald Trump, as a result of McKeon Group's lobbying in the first contract.
McKeon Group also contacted Congressman Ed Royce through a phone call on April 13 to request a meeting. A day later, the meeting was confirmed via e-mail for April 27th, and on April 27th, representatives of the lobbying office, McKeon Group, held a meeting with Congressman Royce to introduce him to clients on account of the lobbying contract signed with the company. Dorelita Limited”.
Meetings were held on account of lobbying for the company "Dorelita Limited" with senators Bill Cassidy and Mike Lee, congressmen Bob Goodlatte and Michael Mçaul, as well as with Nate Peters from "Homeland Security".
An investigation of "Mother Jones", by journalists Dan Friedman and Hannah Levintova, casts doubt that a visit of Vangjel Tavos to Washington at the end of April 2017 is related to the meetings that the McKeon Group was organizing with congressional Republicans on behalf of the "Dorelita" firm.
The said investigation raises doubts that Iraklis Fidetzis is unlikely to have financed the 600,000 dollar lobbying campaign of the "Dorelita Limited" company himself, but acted on behalf of another party. The question that remains unanswered and is being investigated by Albanian justice is who financed LSI's lobbying at the offshore company "Dorelita Limited".
It is worth noting that none of these payments made to "Dorelita Limited" on behalf of LSI was declared in the financial statements of this political force, nor in the declarations of expenses of its leader, Ilir Meta and then Petrit Vasili of Monika Kryemadhi.
Meanwhile, since 2019, when in Albania the opposition had burned the mandates and Ilir Meta, already as President, was involved in a series of clashes with the socialists regarding the order of appointments to the Constitutional Court, the company "Dorelita Limited" has changed its status several times, from active in passive and vice versa, while the last financial balance was submitted in 2017.
However, this was not the first time that Ilir Meta was involved in large lobbying payments in Washington. The McKeon Group, run by former Republican congressman Howard P. McKeon, is just one of the lobbying companies benefiting from contracts with LSI and Meta.
In 2016, LSI also spent over $120,000 on lobbying in Washington. The contracted company was Global Security and Innovative Strategies. The goal was to secure high-level meetings with US officials and lawmakers. (day)
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