The Egyptian government wasted no time preparing for the post-Donald Trump era, as it assembled a powerful bipartisan lobbying team that includes retired Congressman Ed Royce and a former senior aide to House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

The American Foreign Lobby.Com said

in a report

that Egypt's ambassador to the United States - Moataz Zahran - signed a contract worth 65,000 dollars per month with the law firm, "Brownstein Hayat Farber Partner" last Monday, one day after he was cast Joe Biden winning speech.

The Denver-based company was signed by Policy Director Ed Royce, a California Republican who chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee from 2013 through 2018.

Nadim al-Shami, the former chief of staff for Pelosi, a veteran of Congress for 25 years, is expected to oversee the work with Royce.

Al-Shami was born in the United States but spent his early childhood in Egypt.

Two of the company’s partners also joined the team, veteran Republican Mark Lampkin who runs the Washington, DC office, and prominent Democratic fundraiser Alfred Motor, joined by policy director Douglas Maguire.

The company will provide government relations services and strategic advice on matters presented to the United States government, according to what is stated in the company file with the US Department of Justice.

The contract lasts for an initial period of one year, which is considered to be extended after re-evaluation.

Cairo fears the return of former players

The site said that this contract comes at a time when Cairo fears the return of some American players whom Cairo blames for the "Arab Spring" uprising and Hosni Mubarak's fall from power.

"They are clearly concerned," said Michel Dani, director of the Middle East program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, co-chair of the bipartisan task force on Egypt. When it became clear that Biden would be the winner, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi sent his congratulations, and now you see all the former foreign ministers and personalities. "High profile women are being hosted on talk shows to reassure government supporters in Egypt that everything will be fine with Biden."

Trump (left) Sisi feverish in many cases (Reuters)

Close relationship with Trump

The site pointed out that Trump - who called Sisi "my favorite dictator" at the G7 summit last year in France - largely protected Cairo from congressional efforts to punish Egypt for its human rights violations, including the death in custody of the American citizen Mustafa Kassem. Earlier this year, the US administration also supported Egypt's diplomatic priorities, especially pressure on Ethiopia over its plans to fill the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

The Egyptian government, after being reassured of the close relationship between Trump and Sisi, abruptly suspended its contract with the pressure company that has been working for it for a long time, the Glover Park group, in January 2019 after a disastrous interview on the "60 Minutes" program on the "CB Network" CBS, as host Scott Pelly repeatedly pressured the Egyptian president over his human rights record.

The site added that the emails leaked from the account of the UAE ambassador in Washington - Yousef Al-Otaiba - revealed that the UAE had paid the bill for lobbyists in Glover Park, and it is not known whether the UAE will pay again, and Royce did not respond to the request for comment.

Sisi's opponents are also pressing

Meanwhile, critics of Cairo, such as Ethiopia, former Egyptian prisoner Muhammad Sultan, and the Organization for Democracy in the Arab World, which was the brainchild of the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and human rights advocates in the United States, were intensifying their pressure on the Sisi government by hiring law firms to work for their benefit.

The "Middle East Eye" newspaper reported - Tuesday - that the Muslim Brotherhood urged Biden to "reconsider past policies in support of dictatorships around the world."

"We call on the Biden administration to reject the crimes and violations committed by authoritarian regimes against peoples' rights. We consider policies that ignore the free choices of people and that enhance relations with authoritarian regimes are completely inappropriate. They represent an option to stand on the wrong side of history," the group said in a statement. .

Amr Moussa

Former Foreign Minister Amr Moussa appeared on the TV program of the pro-regime host Ahmed Moussa this week, and switched to English to advise "the lobby, the lobby, the lobby."

Danny of Carnegie said that Amr Moussa used the word lobby 20 times, saying, "We will have to pressure madly, not only against the administration of course, but Congress, civil society, the media as well."


And Cairo seems to have understood the message.