Iran Victims Turn To The Swamp For Help Lobbying Trump

The families of Americans imprisoned or killed in Iran are turning to K Street for help extracting more than $1 billion from the regime amid the Trump administration’s effort to wind down the conflict.

Three of Washington’s most influential lobbying firms are now representing the families of Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, who spent more than a year in Iranian prison before his release in 2016, and Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent presumed to have been kidnapped and killed by Iranian intelligence in the early 2000s.

After years of seesawing tensions and proxy conflicts between the U.S. and Iran, the families view the outbreak of open war this year as their best chance to collect financial judgments stemming from lawsuits they won against Iran in U.S. courts.

The Rezaians have employed Ches McDowell of Checkmate Government Relations, a close friend of Donald Trump Jr. who didn’t start lobbying in Washington until the start of the second Trump administration. The Levinsons have hired Brian Ballard, a close ally of the president and one of his key fundraisers, and a team from BGR Group that includes two former White House employees.

Turning to some of the president’s closest allies on K Street is designed to make sure American negotiators, led by Vice President JD Vance, are aware of their request.

“Justice delayed does not need to be justice denied,” said Sean Cooksey, a former top Vance aide who left for BGR in February, and reported the Levinsons in May as his first-ever lobbying client.

Victims of terrorism and their families have long employed traditional legal help to obtain financial judgments against state sponsors of terror and pressed Congress to establish a system for distributing compensation. But hiring some of the most in-demand corporate lobbyists on K Street to better connect with the administration is a novel tactic that reflects the frustrations with that program and the perception of who holds sway in Trump’s Washington.

Despite Checkmate’s newcomer status in Washington, the firm’s White House connections swiftly attracted clients and it is now one of the fastest-growing lobbying shops in the city. And Ballard’s firm, Ballard Partners, reported earning more than $63 million in lobbying revenue during the first half of this year, according to records, far outpacing his competitors.

“We have engaged in meaningful dialogue with the appropriate officials on the family’s behalf, and we will continue that work until they get the answers and assistance they deserve,” the firm said in a statement. Checkmate’s McDowell declined to comment.

A federal judge ruled for the Levinsons in a 2020 lawsuit against Iran, ordering Tehran to pay the family $1.46 billion in damages. The family hopes U.S. negotiators will use the judgment as leverage to press Iran for closure regarding his 2007 disappearance.

“Our ask is simple: in any negotiation with Iran, set aside a portion of Iran’s frozen assets and make clear that not one dollar of it will be released until Iran returns Bob Levinson’s remains and comes clean about what they did to him,” Levinson’s family said in a statement. “He deserves to be at rest, at home in the country he loved.”

Rezaian and his family, including his wife who was also arrested and detained, won a $180 million judgment in 2019, just a year before Levinson’s family obtained their judgment. The Rezaian family declined to comment.

Both Ballard and the BGR team have lobbied the White House on behalf of the Levinsons, lobbying records show, and Ballard has also had discussions with the State Department.

“The Levinson family and all victims of hostage-taking by Iran deserve answers and accountability,” the State Department said in a statement. “The Department takes this matter seriously and remains committed to pursuing justice on their behalf. We are aware of this request; however, as a matter of policy, we do not publicly discuss the details of internal deliberations.”

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said the president “is only open to making a good deal with Iran” — one where they “permanently renounce their desire for a nuclear weapon” — without addressing questions about his commitment to setting aside funds for victims.  

But in an August post on Truth Social, President Donald Trump wrote that he would be “demanding compensation from Iran, for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts.” That demand would be included in all future negotiations, the president added, although there have been no substantive negotiations since his post.

Financial judgments for families like these became more frequent after the passage of a 1996 law that allowed victims to sue designated state sponsors of terror in U.S. courts, despite the fact that Iran has never willingly submitted payment. The funding instead primarily comes from civil penalties and assets seized by the U.S. from entities that have violated sanctions against Iran.

The large sums owed to the Levinsons and the Rezaians are only a fraction of the more than $120 billion in unpaid financial judgments U.S. courts have slapped onto Iran, according to an August report by the Justice Department, which tracks payments made to victims and their families out of a fund Congress created in 2015.

“There’s more activity right now in chasing Iranian assets than I have seen in 30 years,” said a lawyer who represents victims of state-sponsored terrorism who was granted anonymity to speak freely about the efforts.

But the account Congress set up, the United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund, is falling short.

A decade of state-sponsored terror attacks around the globe and a lack of steady funding for the program have forced families to take matters into their own hands, said Angela Mistrulli, a prominent “unpaid lobbyist” for victims for more than a decade.

“Everybody’s trying to get to these assets because the fund where everybody is supposed to go to congregate is not functioning,” Mistrulli, who founded the advocacy group American Victims of State-Sponsored Terrorism United after her father was killed on 9/11, said. “And Congress, unfortunately, in our prior attempts was not taking this seriously.”

But since the start of the war with Iran, and amid periodic hopes that the countries can negotiate a resolution to the conflict, victims and their families are doing what they can to make sure their voices are part of that conversation.

“My organization has just expanded so vastly that every week I have more and more new victims joining and participating in fly-ins,” Mistrulli said, referencing other families who have sued Iran and won financial judgments in U.S. courts. “It’s a renewed sense of hope to fight for what Congress promised us.”

Mistrulli attended this month’s GOP midterm convention in Dallas, Texas, where she said she spoke directly to President Trump about a House bill introduced in July that would set aside $9 billion over three years to be distributed by the victims fund.

“I was able to explain to him some of the issues that the nearly 23,000 American victims of state sponsored terrorism are facing right now and he was very receptive,” she said of the conversation. “He was very compassionate and understanding and it seems as if he is now further engaged with our issues.”