Pakistan Calls K Street to Save Rep

The Hill reports:

Pakistan will likely call upon Washington lobbyists to help repair its fraught U.S. relations after Osama bin Laden was found and killed in the country Sunday.

Locke Lord Strategies has been lobbying for the Pakistani embassy since May 2008, earning more than $1.9 million in fees, according to Justice Department records.

The firm’s lobbying team for Pakistan has been led by Mark Siegel, a veteran Democratic Party operative, Carter White House aide and close friend to Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani prime minister who was assassinated in 2007 as she campaigned for her old seat.

Siegel told The Hill that he is planning to talk to lawmakers to combat what he terms “speculation” from some in the media that Pakistan’s government must have known of bin Laden’s hiding place.

“It’s these consultants that all these networks have hired to talk about terrorism who are making all these speculations,” said Siegel, a partner at Locke Lord. “We have some education to do on the Hill. We don’t want this speculation to end up being considered as fact.”

Pakistan has received billions of dollars of U.S. foreign aid over the years, which could come under threat with the discovery of bin Laden in the country. On Monday, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said Congress should wait on funding the president’s fiscal 2012 budget request of close to $3 billion in aid to Pakistan until the country’s government explains how bin Laden hid for so long in plain sight.