Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, serves a primarily rural district anchored in Waco, a city of 150,000. It’s unclear why he is so interested in NSO Group, the infamous Israeli spyware firm that was blacklisted by the U.S. for its role in human rights abuses.
Between February and July, though, Sessions and his team met eight times with lobbyists on behalf of NSO.
One meeting was held for a “briefing on Bureau of Industry and Security Status” — the Department of Commerce office that blacklisted NSO in November 2021. Others were for “discussions of news articles reporting on NSO technology and the war in Gaza” and “NSO VISA issue,” according to documents filed with the Foreign Agents Registrations Act, or FARA, at the end of August.
In July, on the same day that the lobbyists from the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, a D.C. powerhouse, met with Sessions to “discuss NSO technology and human rights policies,” one of its lawyers and former House member from Texas, Greg Laughlin, paid $1,000 by check to “Pete Sessions for Congress.” At other times, Laughlin — who is actively registered as a lobbyist for NSO, according to current filings — donated to the campaigns of other Texas Republicans who NSO met with, including Rep. Dan Crenshaw.
“This absolutely looks like part of NSO Group lobbyists ongoing efforts to reverse the firm’s blacklisting.”
Against the backdrop of Israel’s war efforts and the looming possibility of a Trump administration, NSO is doubling down on its efforts to connect with members of Congress — almost exclusively with Republicans — as it makes a bid to reverse its blacklisting. NSO’s Pegasus spyware can infect and infiltrate cellphones and has been used by authoritarian governments to hack the devices of dissidents, journalists, and human rights activists, enabling grave abuses.
The latest blitz in its yearslong campaign for delisting kicked off at the onset of the Israeli war in Gaza last year, when NSO tried to persuade Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that its technology was of use to the American government.
“It is, unfortunately, not uncommon for FARA registrants to make campaign contributions to the members of Congress they’re contacting on behalf of foreign interests,” Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute, told The Intercept. “And, even if that contribution occurs on the exact same day the meeting takes place, it’s perfectly legal.”
Freeman said NSO’s focus on Republicans might arise from Democrats’ growing disillusionment with Israel.
“This absolutely looks like part of NSO Group lobbyists ongoing efforts to reverse the firm’s blacklisting,” he said. “Frankly, they’re going to find Republicans an easier target than Democrats for putting pressure on the Commerce Department to delist NSO Group, with many Democrats’ souring on Israel because of the thousands of civilians they’ve killed in the Gaza war.”
In a statement to The Intercept, Sessions spokesperson Matt Myams said, “Former Congressman Greg Laughlin has known and politically supported Congressman Sessions for many years. During that time, they have discussed a wide variety of topics, including general questions about how certain immigration laws work.” (NSO Group declined to comment.)
So far this year NSO has spent over $1.8 million on lobbying, according to FARA documents. Alongside Pillsbury, D.C.-based Chartwell Strategy Group as well as Los Angeles lobbying firm Paul Hastings have also heavily focused their efforts on connecting predominately with Republican lawmakers on behalf of NSO.
While NSO continues to rebuild its reputation in the U.S., others have thrown in the towel. Candiru, another Israeli spyware company which was blacklisted along with NSO, lost its U.S. contracts and terminated its Washington lobbying contract with ArentFox Schiff earlier this year.
NSO, in contrast, continued its effort by using Israel’s war to boost its chances. The company marketed itself as a volunteer in the war on Gaza, claiming to help track down missing Israelis and hostages. The bid to persuade the American government to let it come back to the table has been called an attempt to “crisis-wash” NSO’s record.
NSO in Court
Even as it makes the case in Washington that it complies with U.S. requirements for discouraging rights abuses using its software, in California, NSO is being accused in a separate instance of flagrantly defying a federal court order.
Earlier this month, WhatsApp and its parent company Meta asked the judge in their case against NSO to award them a total win as punishment for NSO’s violations of discovery requirements. The spyware company has refused to produce internal email communications and the source code of its technology.
In NSO’s response, filed on October 16, the firm said there was “no basis for any sanction, let alone terminating sanctions, because Defendants have not violated any order.” WhatsApp’s termination request, the filing said, was “ludicrous.” NSO said WhatsApp’s case was “the first of five ill-conceived lawsuits filed against Defendants in the United States amidst a wave of negative press coverage.”
In its five-year-long case, WhatsApp this month made sweeping allegations about NSO’s refusal to produce internal email communications and Pegasus source code.
“NSO’s discovery violations were willful, and unfairly skew the record on virtually every key issue in the case, from the merits, to jurisdiction, to damages, making a full and fair trial on the facts impossible,” the company said in the filing.
Last year, NSO asked the court for a protective order to insulate them from the discovery process under Israeli law, which was denied. At a hearing this February, the court said it “would not feel reluctant to impose sanctions” if NSO failed to meet its discovery obligations.
“NSO group has made a lot of arguments to resist discovery and kind of draw out the early stages of litigation in these cases as much as possible,” said Stephanie Krent, attorney at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute.
The next hearing in the WhatsApp case will take place on November 7.
“We remain focused on protecting our users,” a WhatsApp spokesperson told The Intercept. “We firmly believe NSO’s operations violate U.S. law and they must be held accountable for their unlawful attacks.”
Meanwhile, in addition to the case by WhatsApp, NSO is facing other hefty accusations in U.S. litigation.
Last month, Apple asked a court in San Francisco to dismiss its three-year hacking suit against NSO. The California tech giant said its case was no longer viable after Israeli government officials took files from NSO’s headquarters in an apparent attempt to frustrate lawsuits in the U.S. Apple argued it may now never be able to get the most critical files about Pegasus spyware.
U.K. Case
As NSO continues to face problems in the U.S., the High Court in London ruled this month that a case against Saudi Arabia for its use of Pegasus can move forward, according to documents obtained by The Intercept. (The Saudi government did not respond to a request for comment.)
The ruling came after four human rights defenders who were hacked with Pegasus on British soil submitted a report to the Metropolitan Police last month asking them to open an investigation and prosecute the company.
Yahya Assiri, a Saudi human rights activist who has been granted refugee status in the U.K., had previously lodged a civil claim against Saudi Arabia. As a check to protect diplomatic relations, British courts have a process to approve the routing of claims to foreign governments.
“Violators’ impunity is the main power for repression to continue.”
With this month’s ruling, Assiri has overcome that hurdle. His lawyers can now serve his claim against Saudi Arabia for using NSO’s Pegasus and another spyware product by Quadream — also an Israeli company founded by NSO veterans — to hack his phone multiple times between 2018 and 2020 while he was living in the U.K.
The claim will be sent through diplomatic channels to the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Violators’ impunity is the main power for repression to continue. Accountability — bringing them before courts, the media, and the world — can at least partially deter them,” Assiri told The Intercept. “The evidence is strong, and the authorities’ request for immunity has been rejected. This means that the world must stop looking for justifications for violations — there is no justification for any violation.”
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