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In May of 2013, the government of Azerbaijan, via its State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), injected $750,000 into an obscure Texas-based non-profit, the Assembly of the Friends of Azerbaijan (AFAZ). The assembly then flipped the funds into a series of secondary non-profits in order to hide the real source of financing of the US legislators’ upcoming visit to Baku, accprding to an Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) report. 

A few weeks later, nine members of the US Congress touched down in Baku. The first class flight and banquets were all organized by those very funds. The Azerbaijani authorities organized quite a generous reception: sumptuous dinners, fireworks displays, gifts of hand-woven carpets, crystal tea sets, silk scarves, and DVDs praising the country’s president Ilham Aliyev - all free of charge, and costing well in excess of the permissible limits of gifts to Congress.

According to a report from the US’s Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), the government of Azerbaijan and SOCAR appear “to have secretly financed the junket for these nine lawmakers and dozens of staffers.” The Ethics Committee is tasked with investigating lobbying and travel violations by members of the House of Representatives.

Craig Holman, a Congressional ethics expert with the Washington-based non-profit organization Public Citizen stated that nobody “has seen this brazenness since the Abramoff days” – the former American lobbyist and businessman, who was involved in a number of corruption scandals.

По словам Холман, была осуществлена попытка иностранного государства, в частности Азербайджана, вмешаться в политику США и одурачить американскую общественность.
According to Holman, a foreign government, particularly Azerbaijan, tried to intervene in the US policy, and hoodwink the American public.”

Meanwhile, according to OCCRP, Azerbaijan and SOCAR are not the only foreign entities to bribe Congressional officials. The OCE report mentioned Turkish non-profits that cloaked their financial backers, much like Azerbaijan, and USA Today recently found an additional 200 Congressional trips secretly funded by dozens of Turkish groups since 2008.

It is noted that Azerbaijan has good reason to attempt to burnish its image. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Azerbaijan remains the fifth-most censored country in the world, and the country has the lowest rates according to the Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.

The country, according to the most recent estimates, has more than twice as many political prisoners as Russia and Belarus combined. It is also reminded that multiple Congressional officials are pushing to implement a sanctions regime against Azerbaijan’s leadership for human rights abuses.

Holman also said that the OCE’s report “should result in a Department of Justice investigation and serious criminal penalties against SOCAR, if not the Azerbaijan government itself.”

Moreover, according to the report, House Ethics Committee Chairman Charlie Dent received at least $8,000 last May from resources linked to Azerbaijan. When the OCE initially began inquiring into the Azerbaijan trip in January 2015, the Ethics Committee lodged no complaints. Two months later, however, the committee demanded the OCE halt its investigation, and refer its evidence to the committee, which said that it was investigating the trip on its own.

Meanwhile, according to the report, a USA Today investigation found that Rep. Yvette Clarke, the lone member of the Ethics Committee who took the trip to Azerbaijan paid by Baku authorities, did not follow the committee’s rules requiring advance approval of trips paid for by private groups.

However, the Ethics Committee had failed to set up a required investigative subcommittee, which meant that the OCE could continue its investigation despite the committee’s complaints. “OCE rules are House rules,” Holman said. “The House Ethics Committee acted contrary to House rules.”

The OCE continued its work, sending final findings to the committee last May. But then the Ethics Committee chose not to publish them, claiming that they were not “convincing enough.”

After the Ethics Committee declined to release the findings, the OCE released its report on its own website, citing “principles of transparency and accountability.” Therefore, despite the US Congress Ethics Committee objections, the Office of Congressional Ethics published an extensive report with the results of how the government of Azerbaijan, SOCAR, and a handful of non-profits misled the US Congressmen in Baku.
According to OCCRP, the junket appears to have paid dividends for Azerbaijan, which not only “raised its profile,” but boosted efforts to attract Western development for Caspian fuel extraction.

An additional Open Secrets investigation revealed that Rep. Jim Bridenstine, who traveled to Baku, began “stumping” in Congress for Azerbaijani fuel, pushing an amendment “that would have required the Department of Defense to issue reports on the strategic importance of natural gas interests in the Caspian.”

Soon thereafter, six other Congressmen who had taken the trip to Baku attached their names to a House resolution seeking more access to Azerbaijan’s hydrocarbon reserves, despite the fact that some analysts say Azerbaijan plays an overblown role in Western energy security.

Meanwhile, according to OCCRP, soon, it will have been a year since reporters for OCCRP took a long, hard look at what is going on inside Azerbaijan’s prison system. Last June, journalists from the US joined colleagues from the Caucasus region and eastern Europe to piece together a history of who was being held in prison and why. It is emphasized that Researchers from the Prisoners Watch project provided data on Azerbaijan’s increasing and unlawful use of its criminal courts to silence political dissent.

It is noted that since the Azerbaijani government began targeting dissidents, a number have been jailed on fabricated accusations and many have fled the country, finding asylum abroad. In some cases, families and relatives of the dissidents have also been harassed by the authorities. 

The report presents the history of political prisoners like Khadija Ismayilova, Parviz Hashimli, Omar Mammadov, Tofiq Yagublu, Rauf Mirkadirov, Abdul Abilov, Seymur Haziyev, Faraj Karimov, Rashad Ramazanov, Nijat Aliyev, and Araz Guliyev.

In her turn, expert on the freedom of press in Azerbaijan, Arzu Geybullayeva, writes for the Global Voices that  a strategically-placed oil-producing state, Azerbaijan hosted the European Games last year, and despite some of the worst authoritarianism in the ex-Soviet region retains healthy relations with the West. The author reminds that on April 20, the state prosecutor's office launched a criminal investigation targeting Meydan TV, a dissident media famous for its publications and reports criticizing the authorities.

According to her, in the conditions of suppressing the independent media and deposing the opposition, life in the country is much more reminiscent of the “Hunger Games” film and book series than any glitzy sporting event. Geybullayeva writes that president Ilham Aliyev “inherited the presidential throne from former communist boss and father Heydar, and has shown even less regard for freedom of expression and other basic human rights.”
“As the country's economy suffers under the strain of low oil prices, the regime has looked ever more like the brutal game designers,” the expert writes.