June 3, 2023
Guillermo Lasso
A journalistic investigation has revealed that two companies signed a contract in the U.S. to work on improving the image of Ecuadorian president, Guillermo Lasso, in that North American country and in the United Kingdom when the president was facing an impeachment trial in the National Assembly.
The document was signed between the companies Global Research and Asset Management LLC (GRAM) and Perceptual Advisors LLC, revealed the investigation, carried out jointly by the Ecuadorian media Plan V, the U.S. Miami Herald and the journalistic network Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
According to the investigation, GRAM, a Florida-based wealth management firm headed by Miguel Macias, a former executive of Banco Guayaquil – an entity of which Lasso was executive president – agreed to pay US$250,000 to the public relations firm Perceptual Advisors LLC for its services for a month for major US and UK media outlets to provide favorable coverage of the Ecuadorian president and his arguments about the impeachment trial being held in Parliament.
One of the objectives of the contract was to “introduce/clarify the truth about the reasons for the impeachment trial”; but, in addition to managing the crisis arising from the impeachment process, Perceptual Advisors’ consultants had to minimize the potential negative impact of the situation on the president’s reputation and his family’s name.
According to the investigation, Perceptual Advisors contacted 23 media journalists to arrange interviews or briefings with Lasso.
The information became known after Perceptual Advisors declared the contract, signed last April 5, before the U.S. Department of Justice, as required by the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
Intermediary contract
What is most questioned about the operation is that the contract was made through an intermediary company (i.e. GRAM) instead of through a direct contracting by the Ecuadorian Government. In the official records, the firm managed by Macías acted as representative of the General Secretariat of Communication of the Presidency of Ecuador, and Wendy Reyes, head of that entity, appears as the contact official.
At the moment it is not clear the origin of the money used in the contract. There are questions as to whether the funds were provided by GRAM (and, if so, why a private company was in charge of financing a media advertising campaign for the Government of Ecuador) or whether they came from public resources, which raises the question of why the public relations contracting was carried out by a private firm on behalf of the Secretariat of Communication.
The political trial against Lasso, accused for the crime of embezzlement, did not come to an end, since when it was taking place in the National Assembly, the president decreed ‘death cross’ that includes the dissolving of the Parliament.
Source: RT, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – US