It’s hard to work up much sympathy for Carlos Slim, one of the richest men in the world — even if he is the victim of a smear campaign.
Slim, who has a near-monopoly on the Mexican cellphone market and owns a big chunk of the New York Times, has been hounded by Two Countries, One Voice, a group trying to prevent his US expansion of TracFone and América Móvil.
Two Countries, One Voice purports to be a grass-roots campaign to stop predatory exploitation of the poor, but Slim’s allies say it is an “astroturf” campaign funded by Mexican business rivals.
Protesters at events in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, DC, were provided with kazoos, vuvuzelas and costumes with Slim-like mustaches. Some were allegedly paid $35.
Last year, Tracfone filed a complaint against Two Countries, One Voice with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission, but the Golden State regulators found “insufficient evidence of a violation of the Political Reform Act.”
Helping slime Slim was Mercury LLC, the bicoastal lobbying firm run by Kieran Mahoney, the former top aide to Gov. George Pataki.
But Slim’s operatives say Mercury pulled out when too many questions were asked about the funding of Two Countries, One Voice.
“If the money is foreign, it violates federal law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Serious stuff,” one source told me.
A spokesman for Mercury said: “We don’t discuss our clients, but I can tell you we do not have any clients with an interest in Carlos Slim.”
Notice the use of the present tense.