Report: Bob Dole lobbied Trump team for months on Taiwan
Former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole lobbied Donald Trump’s team for months on rethinking relations with Taiwan, a new report revealed, following the president-elect’s phone call with Taiwanese leader Tsai Ying-wen.
The Wall Street Journal first reported Dole’s role Monday. The New York Times gave further details about how the Republican, who now works as a lobbyist for the Washington firm Alston & Bird, helped facilitate the phone call.
Reviewing disclosure documents filed with the Justice Department last week, the Times found that Dole was paid about $140,000 from May to October for his work coordinating the series of meetings with Mr. Trump’s campaign advisers and officials in Taiwan. The Times noted that Dole, who was the only former Republican presidential nominee to endorse Mr. Trump’s campaign, was “acting as a foreign agent for the government of Taiwan” in the proceedings.
“It’s fair to say that we had some influence,” Dole said in an interview with the Times. “When you represent a client and they make requests, you’re supposed to respond.”
Of Taiwan’s hopes for the incoming administration, Dole said they were “very optimistic.”
“They see a new president, a Republican, and they’d like to develop a closer relationship,” he told the Times.
Dole’s role in facilitating Taiwan talks with Mr. Trump’s team included arranging a meeting between Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, a Republican who has been nominated to head up the Justice Department, and Stanley Kao, Taiwan’s envoy to the U.S.
Even before Mr. Trump’s Election Night win, Dole had tried to establish early relationships between the campaign and Taiwanese officials. He attempted to involve the then-candidate’s aides in a U.S. delegation to Taiwan and he worked to include language favorable to the island in the party’s platform.
According to the lobbying disclosure documents filed to the Justice Department, Dole and his firm were contracted with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the U.S. and were responsible for attempting to obtain Taiwan’s membership in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, advancing “Taiwan’s military goals,” and “promote travel to Taiwan by and skeek meetings with U.S. Administration officials, Members of Congress, and other prominent Americans.”
The president-elect received some criticism over his call with Tsai over the weekend, when China, which considers Taiwan a renegade province, launched an official diplomatic complaint over the conversation.
“We have noticed relevant reports and lodged solemn representation with the relevant side in the United States,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a statement. “I must point out that there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is an inseparable part of the Chinese territory.”
Later, Beijing seemed to downplay the talks. In a China Daily editorial, they said, “It exposed nothing but his and his transition team’s inexperience in dealing with foreign affairs.”
Mr. Trump’s call with Tsai was the first time a president or president-elect has spoken with a Taiwanese leader since the U.S. first cut off diplomatic relations with the island nation in 1979.