{"id":2553,"date":"2015-12-05T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-12-05T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armando.info\/?p=2553"},"modified":"2021-05-28T16:48:50","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T16:48:50","slug":"boutique-of-reputations-defends-cilia-flores-nephew-in-the-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/boutique-of-reputations-defends-cilia-flores-nephew-in-the-usa\/","title":{"rendered":"Boutique of Reputations defends Cilia Flores' nephew in the USA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Businesses \nhave no borders. So says the page of the law firm that, since last November 12, \nis responsible for the defense of Efra\u00edn Campo Flores, the nephew of Cilia \nFlores, wife of the president of Venezuela, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. Campo Flores was \narrested last November accused of drug trafficking along with his cousin, \nFranqui Flores. The former was guaranteed a defense with one of the 30 largest \nlaw firms in the world that also ranked second in the US lobbying business. \nSquire Patton Boggs is the defense firm of many interests in Washington DC, a \nmember of the establishment in the US capital.The firm, as it is now known, was \nborn in 2014, as a result of the merger of many other firms. The first, the \noldest, is Squire, Sanders & Dempsey. It was founded in Cleveland (Ohio, \nUSA) in 1890 and until the 90s, it was a law firm with offices in its country of \norigin and Brussels, Belgium only. The fall of the Iron Curtain and the collapse \nof the former Soviet Union after the end of the Cold War marked the rise of the \ngroup, which intervened in much of the privatization processes of companies in \nthe former Soviet republics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \nJanuary 2011, it merged with the European Hammonds, incorporated in Yorkshire \n(United Kingdom) in 1887, which had turn merged with Edge Ellison in 2000. From \nbeing the most important group in its country, it acquired a millionaire debt \nthat led to a drastic downsizing, a situation that significantly improved when \njoining Squire, Sanders & Dempsey and that, undoubtedly, would improve even \nmore over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \nthird law firm is Patton Boggs, founded by James R. Patton Jr in 1962. His fall \nis recent. They participated in Ecuador's lawsuit against Chevron Corp, filed \nfor the dumping of over 800,000 tons of petroleum waste between 1964 and 1992, \nin the Lago Agrio area. The dispute was \"settled\" when the oil company agreed \nwith the law firm to pay 15 million dollars provided Chevron withdrew \nallegations of fraud, deception and malicious accusation against the firm. The \nEcuadorian citizens who filed the lawsuit, dissatisfied, accused Patton Boggs of \n\"betrayal\". Hewitt Pate, Chevron's general counsel, said the company was \n\"pleased that they had ended their association with the litigation for fraud and \nextortion in Ecuador,\" and Patton Boggs apologized and agreed to cooperate with \nthe international company. The negotiations for the merger with Squire Sands \nstarted earlier and this collision was an obstacle. Once settled, the merger \ntook place in June 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This \nis how Squire Patton Boggs was born, with 44 offices in 21 countries and an \nannual turnover of 775 million dollars, according to American Lawyer. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caracas: Coke and Gas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The \ncase of Cilia Flores' nephew is not the only case taken by the law firm. For a \nfew weeks, they have been in charge of the case of the Central Bank of Venezuela \n(BCV) against the DolarToday website. This site publishes the rate of what is \nknown in the country as \"parallel dollar\" or \"black-market dollar.\" The exchange \ncontrol existing in the country since 2003, was implemented - according to the \nthen President Hugo Ch\u00e1vez - to prevent the flight of foreign currency after the \nthree-month oil strike that tried to overthrow the revolutionary leader. It was \nintended as a temporary measure, but since then and, for now, it is here to \nstay. For instance, Venezuelans who want to travel abroad must request \nauthorization for the government to be assigned dollars. Depending on their \ndestination and the length of stay, they are assigned a greater or lesser \namount. The same happens with the companies - regardless of the size - that want \nto import goods. To understand the significance of this control, it must be \npointed out that Venezuela's production depends to a large extent on imports. \nThough there are pharmaceuticals in the country, the active ingredients are \nimported. There is corn flour, but the grain mostly comes from \nabroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \ncontrol of foreign currencies has generated a demand that in turn created a \nparallel rate, which first varied according to the bidder. In 2010, if the \nofficial dollar was at Bs. 6.30, it could be obtained at Bs. 10 on the black \nmarket. That year, DolarToday appeared, a page that published the rate of the \n\"unmentionable,\" coined like that due to the Government's prohibition to mention \nit and give its value. Nobody knew who was behind the page or what was exactly \nthe calculation method of this black-market rate. The investigation  \u201cDolarToday - The most famous revenge of \nthree Venezuelans\u201d, by Armando.Info, El Pitazo TV and Poderopedia Venezuela, \nuncovered some of the faces behind the website. Then ?after \nthe government of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro vociferated several threats against the portal, \nwhich was accused of being part of a conspiracy against the national \ncurrency? \nthe BCV came into play. This is when the firm came into the \npicture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Squire \nPatton Bogs is in charge of this litigation against the members of DolarToday. \nIt is the only case which they wanted to talk about with Armando.Info. While \ntheir website has contact information of each of the lawyers making up their \nfirm, at the time of declaring they are more reluctant. They were contacted in \nthe New York office, which is in charge of the case of the Flores nephew. The \ncall never went beyond the receptionist, who many times insisted on knowing \"who \nsent us.\" They said it was impossible to accept an interview. At the publishing \nof this press release, the lawyers of that office did not answer the successive \nemails sent to them. After contacting the Washington DC office and also sending \nseveral emails, Adam R. Fox finally answered, who agreed to a teleconference \ninterview via Skype.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam \nR. Fox, young, but with 18 years of experience in the company - started with \nSquire Sanders - tells from his home in Los Angeles that he is one of the \nlawyers in charge of the DolarToday case. He insists that he can only talk about \nthat case, \"I do not know about other cases. I am not involved in the case of \nCilia Flores' nephew. I do not even know which of my colleagues is.\" Nor does he \nsay how much is BCV paying to its company. \"I am focused on the case, not on \nthose details.\" Nor does he know who is in charge of this contract in Venezuela, \n\"a lot of BCV people talk to us.\" On his case, he says that most Americans do \nnot know what DolarToday is, nor do they have any interest in what the BCV \ndoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"It \nis in Delaware, and at least 15 people are responsible for making rates. Where \ndo you get that information? Why are they doing that? Why do they make those \nnumbers with which they are illicitly getting rich?\" he says calmly, alluding to \nthe fact that he does not know if the Venezuelan government is popular or \nunpopular, but that he is on the side of a central bank \u2013 \u201ca small part of a \ngovernment that is engaged in monetary policy and is having this problem.\" \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No Borders, No Ideologies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Another \ncase of the Venezuela chapter in this law firm is Citgo and a decree issued by \nPresident Barack Obama on March 9. Citgo is the subsidiary company of PDVSA in \nUSA. In 2014, the Human Rights Defense Law project was presented in Venezuela to \ninvestigate and punish some officials of the Venezuelan Government who, \naccording to Washington DC, had committed human rights violations during the \nrepression of the guarimbas (street blockades and protests) of 2014. But someone \nstopped the project, the Senator of the Democratic Party, Mary Landrieu, \npresident of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Citgo contacted her \nthrough a series of emails that were published on the website of the Pol\u00edtico \nmagazine after a leak. They communicated the senator their uncertainty about the \nlaw and the possible repercussion it could have on their company. \"If the law is \napproved, it would affect the import of crude from our refinery in Lakes Charles \n(Louisiana, United States), and led to the dismissal of hundreds of \nemployees.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What \nis Squire Patton Boggs\u2019 role here? Several things. On the one hand, it was the \nlobby group that Citgo hired to convince the senator to stop the law that was \npassed in the end. On the other hand, were the main financiers of the Landrieu \ncampaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From \nsupporting the causes of the Bolivarian, Socialist, Chavez and Workers' \nRevolution to support the causes of someone accused of the largest genocide in \nLatin America, one just have to go back a few years. Fernando Romeo Lucas Garc\u00eda \narrived at the presidency of Guatemala after the 1978 elections. Since then \nuntil 1982, he ruled the Central American country with dictatorial shades. Along \nwith his successor, Efra\u00edn R\u00edos Montt - who came to power after a coup d'\u00e9tat, \nis identified as one of the leading individuals responsible for human rights \nviolations in Guatemala.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"In \n1976, there was an earthquake that devastated Guatemala. Lucas Garc\u00eda sensed in \n'78 that the guerrillas in Guatemala were growing. It was the result of the \ninjustice and inequality that governed after the catastrophe. He began to see \nthe advance of the revolutionary movements in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El \nSalvador, and felt that he was losing power. He was the one who let the violence \nin Guatemala reach to such level,\" says Mart\u00edn Rodr\u00edguez Wachikaj, a Guatemalan \njournalist, founder of the N\u00f3mada newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A \ntotal of 200,000 murdered, 50,000 disappeared and a million internally displaced \npersons or refugees in Mexico, in a country that had then 7 million inhabitants, \nis the disastrous balance of Lucas Garc\u00eda and his successor. \"There were more \nsocial leaders disappeared than in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile together. He \ntook violence to horrifying levels,\" says Rodr\u00edguez Wachikaj. In the high plane, \nviolence against the indigenous communities that claimed their rights was \nextreme. When they wanted to raise their voice in a more visible place, death \nfound them. On January 31, 1980, they went to the Spanish embassy in the capital \nto demonstrate. \"Romeo Lucas prohibited the fire brigades to approach the \nembassy and burned everyone: peasants, students, diplomats, politicians. He \nslaughtered 38 people.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During \nthe government of Lucas Garc\u00eda, the United States of America stop through the \nCongress the aid for military purposes in Guatemala. The Guatemalan dictator \ntried to iron out the differences with the neighbor from the north with money \nand talk in order to slam the iron fist in his country. For that purpose, \nlobbyist Thomas H. Boggs Jr, father of the firm Patton Boggs, was the last \njoining Squire Patton Boggs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \nthe fire of the embassy of Spain, Vicente Mench\u00fa, father of Rigoberta, the 1992 \nNobel Peace Prize winner, was killed. And she was the one who brought a case \nagainst him before the National Court of Spain. When Lucas Garc\u00eda was \noverthrown, he went into exile. Then the story returns to \"little Venice.\" He \nfound refuge in Venezuela and died Venezuela, lying in his bed, as he spent the \nlast years of his life, suffering from Alzheimer's, without remembering the \ncrimes for which he was never tried, accompanied by his wife, Elsa Cirigliano, \nVenezuelan, member of a family of entrepreneurs from the state of Anzoategui \n(northeast of Venezuela). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Caracas to Istanbul<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Squire \nPatton Boggs\u2019 influences virtually spread all over the world, and it has in the \nMiddle East, a hot spot of the planet, an important presence as a lobby, without \nno one turning their noses up at what may be behind. Last August, it was \nrevealed that the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, used the fight \nagainst the so-called Islamic State in the area near its border as a pretext to \n\"carry out a campaign of genocide attack against the Kurdish people,\" according \nto Huffington Post. A high-ranking US official accused Turkey of cheating the US \ngovernment by using the Incirlik Air Base to attack Isis (acronym for Islamic \nState of Iraq and the Levant terrorist group), as a cover to attack the \nKurdistan Workers' Party (or PKK, its Kurdish acronym) in the north of Iraq, \nstated the Wall Street Journal. According to this newspaper, there were only \nthree attacks against Isis and 300 against the PKK. The aim was to punish the \nminority movement in the face of the elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erdogan \nwanted to clear his name and the name of his government, hence, he hired the \ncommunications office. He paid $ 32,000 a month to subcontract a lobby to access \nthe Gephardt group. He spent in all public relations groups around five million \ndollars a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Squire \nPatton Boggs also offered to help another client, the Palestinian Authority. The \npayment of $ 55,000 per month was intended to assist the Palestinian government \nin the evaluation by the US Senate on whether or not to continue sending \neconomic aid to the Palestinian people after the association of the Authority \nwith Hamas, considered in the country of the North as a terrorist \norganization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \nthe Middle East, the list of this lobby goes on. It received money from Libya \nsince 2011. The total amount of 2014 amounted to $ 265,000. Last year, it \nreceived $ 427,000 from Qatar, a client since 1994. Saudi Arabia paid somewhat \nless than $ 227,000. All this money to take the interests of these countries to \ntop leaderships of the United States to protect them, different interests \nrelated to oil, gas, health or financing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"We \nrepresent companies, individuals, governments. Sometimes people look on what we \ndo with favor, others don\u2019t,\" explains Adam R. Fox. \"All I can say is that when \nI am involved in this, I try to understand the details under the law and make \nsure that I can get up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror, be happy \nwith myself. I feel good about that, pleased with what I do in \nVenezuela.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Venezuela, \nthe Palestinian Authority, Turkey against the Kurds or oil from Saudi Arabia, \ndifferent interests that, apparently, do not clash with ideologies. As the poet \nsaid it, money talks. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the menu of Squire Patton Boggs, the powerful firm that brings together a law firm and public relations bureau, the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela found several options to its liking: from lobbying against adverse laws to suing a web portal. Now, the company, which at the time has equally served a bloody Guatemalan dictator or the Palestinian Authority, is responsible for assisting Efra\u00edn Campos, nephew of the Venezuelan 'First Combatant', accused of drug trafficking in a court in New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":53574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","ghostkit_customizer_options":"","ghostkit_custom_css":"","ghostkit_custom_js_head":"","ghostkit_custom_js_foot":"","ghostkit_typography":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2389],"tags":[958],"pais":[],"serie":[],"localizacion":[4227],"ppma_author":[2224],"class_list":["post-2553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-deportes","tag-usa"],"acf":{"reportage-top-html":""},"views":1510,"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":2389,"label":"Deportes"}],"post_tag":[{"value":958,"label":"USA"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/armando.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/05122015-boutique.png",1920,784,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"ARMANDO.INFO","author_link":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/author\/armando2\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":2389,"name":"Deportes","slug":"deportes","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":2389,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":16,"filter":"raw","menu_order":"0","cat_ID":2389,"category_count":16,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Deportes","category_nicename":"deportes","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":958,"name":"USA","slug":"usa","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":958,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","menu_order":"0"}],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 09:30:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"authors":[{"term_id":2224,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"alicia-hernandez","display_name":"ALICIA HERN\u00c1NDEZ","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56957,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2553\/revisions\/56957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2553"},{"taxonomy":"pais","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pais?post=2553"},{"taxonomy":"serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/serie?post=2553"},{"taxonomy":"localizacion","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/localizacion?post=2553"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=2553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}