Complaint lodged with US Justice Department  over APNU/AFC misleading dossier – Jagdeo

The APNU/AFC coalition has misled the United States Government in the dossier that it recently filed with the Department of Justice, Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo said on Friday, and as such, his party has filed a complaint in this regard.

During a virtual press briefing on Friday, Jagdeo disclosed that the PPP/C has written the Department of Justice, informing the US Government that it is being misled by the Washington-based lobbyist firm, JJ&B LLC, that was hired by the coalition to engage the US State Department on its behalf in changing the narrative on the current political and electoral impasse.
“We have filed a complaint with the Justice Department against the firm… we’ve filed a complaint that the FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act Unit, which received the document from lobbyist firm] filings misled the US Government when they claim to be representing the Government of Guyana,” Jagdeo stated.
The dossier that was filed late March listed the Guyana Government as the ‘foreign principal’; the Ministry of the Presidency was named the agency that is being represented by the lobbyist firm; and Director General of the Ministry of the Presidency, Joseph Harmon, was named as the official with whom the company engages.
Despite this, however, Harmon, who is also the campaign manager for the APNU/AFC coalition, had stated that it was the coalition’s supporters that wanted to change the narrative reaching capitals around the world and had even forked up the US$72,000 to pay the lobbyist firm.
In fact, both caretaker President David Granger and his Prime Ministerial Candidate Khemraj Ramjattan have since claimed that it was the party that hired the firm and not the Government. However, the documents filed with the Justice Department state that the Government of Guyana is the foreign principal.
A statement from the Ministry of the Presidency last week stated, “the Government of Guyana has not hired JJ&B LLC and has no contractual arrangement or affiliation with the said firm.  No Government funds were used to hire the firm.”
To this end, Jagdeo posited on Friday that, “So it meant that the filing with FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] was fraudulent, it was fake and all of the congressmen and the others to whom they have distributed this dossier, this company has illegally done so because they’ve done so on behalf of the Government of Guyana when the Government of Guyana, through President Granger’s statement, made it clear that he did not hire this company and he doesn’t know who they are.”
The Opposition Leader went on to point out that companies have been heavily penalised through huge fines and other measures, even imprisonment, for misleading the Justice Department.
The United States has been at the forefront in mounting international pressure for the March 2 General and Regional Elections results to be credible and transparent, following fraudulent declarations made by embattled Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo.
Mingo’s declarations have since been set aside, and the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) is now preparing to conduct a total recount of all the votes cast some seven weeks ago. No date has been set for the recount as yet.
Harmon had defended hiring the lobbyist firm, saying last week that, “We believe [that] as a Government it was our duty, our responsibility, to ensure that our narrative – the facts as they occurred — should be placed there in these capitals [around the world]. And therefore, we felt it was necessary to have a company that has that access to be able to put out our side of the story.”