Nicolas Muzin

Last updated

Nicolas David Muzin is a Canadian-American Republican political strategist, attorney and physician. He was a paid consultant for The Nation of Qatar. [1] Prior to that, he served as the director of coalitions for the United States House Republican Conference [2] and was a senior adviser and deputy chief of staff for Republican candidate for President of the United States Sen. Ted Cruz. [3] After the 2016 elections, he went on to work as a lobbyist, filing and registering under FARA as a foreign agent, first for the Democratic (opposition) party of Albania.

Contents

Early life

Muzin was raised in a Jewish family [4] in Toronto, Ontario, and is the son of Helen and Gary Muzin. His father is the president of a construction distribution and supply company. [5]

Education

Muzin attended Ner Israel Yeshiva High School in Toronto. After spending some post-high school time at the Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia, he attended Yeshiva University in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. While there, he served as editor in chief of the school newspaper, The Commentator, graduating in 1997. Muzin then completed Albert Einstein College of Medicine on a full four-year scholarship in 2001. Following a year as an internal medicine intern, he proceeded to Yale Law School. [6] At Yale, Muzin was a member of the Jewish leadership society Shabtai.

Career

Early career

In 2000, Muzin supported the Al Gore / Joe Lieberman ticket. [7] He joined George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign as counsel for the Republican National Committee and served as a medical adviser for the 2008 presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain. [7] From 2005 to 2008, Muzin was of council at Williams & Connolly.

Work with Tim Scott

Muzin was chief of staff and policy adviser for then Charleston City Councilmember Tim Scott during his successful 2010 campaign for US Congress following the retirement of Rep. Henry Brown. Muzin served as Scott's chief of staff until December 2011. [8] Muzin was “instrumental in paving Scott’s way” and Scott revealed “without Muzin’s entreaties…[he] may not have run for the Charleston-area House seat that opened.” [8] Nick Muzin arrayed on his dining room table what would turn out to be the winning strategy to elect the first black Republican to Congress from South Carolina in more than a century. “Initially, I was fairly reluctant. I did not have my sights set on Washington,” Scott said. “He was crucial in helping me to get to that conclusion.” [8]

Muzin and Scott bonded over health policy, and interest in each other's beliefs. “The close alliance – and friendship — between a black Tea Party Republican from the South and an Orthodox doctor-lawyer from Canada is a rarity in politics, and upends perceptions about how blacks and Jews interact.” [8] The end of 2012 saw promotions for both Muzin and Scott. Muzin became the director of strategy and coalitions for the House Republican Conference for the 113th Congress, and Scott was appointed to the U.S. Senate by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. Muzin remained involved with Scott during his transition from the House to his current position in the Senate, and Muzin became the national political director for the Washington D.C. political action committee Tomorrow is Meaningful (TIM-PAC), [7] which focuses on encouraging entrepreneurship, private market-driven health care, tax reform, strengthening ties with longtime U.S. ally Israel, and an additional aim of sourcing viable candidates to bolster the Tea Party movement's political base. [9] [10]

In 2013, Muzin successfully performed the Heimlich maneuver on Congressman Ted Poe, saving his life after the congressman started choking on a piece of popcorn. [11]

Work with Ted Cruz

Recruited by Chad Sweet, national campaign chairman for Sen. Ted Cruz, [12] Muzin served as senior advisor and deputy chief of staff for strategy for Cruz's Republican candidacy for President of the United States in the 2016 election. [2] Cruz stated that he used Muzin as a sounding board on issues related to Judaism and to gain a deeper understanding of the religion and the broader community. [13]

In July 2016, Muzin was considered by Yeshiva University, his alma mater, for the position of university president. [14] [15]

Donald Trump administration

During the 2017 legislative session, Muzin played a key role in the passage of the First Step Act, a major piece of criminal justice legislation. It was a particularly difficult time for criminal justice reform, and among the most important holdouts on the Republican side at the time was Texas senator Ted Cruz. The key to reaching Cruz was Muzin, who "arranged a conference call which included long-time Cruz supporters, prominent Texan rabbinic leaders, influential legal figures like Alan Dershowitz, former attorney general Michael Mukasey, and conservative thought leaders, with multiple speakers covering the issue from personal, religious, moral, policy, and legal perspectives." [16] Just over a week later, on December 7 — which, Muzin observes, “was Shabbos Parshas Mikeitz, when we read of Yosef being released from prison” — Cruz announced his support for the legislation. With Cruz's change of heart and that of a few others, the First Step Act passed with an overwhelming majority of 87–12. [17]

In February 2018, it was reported by Haaretz and The Times of Israel that the Qatari government had hired Muzin to improve the Emirates's relations with the Trump administration and the Jewish American community. Muzin's work reportedly included arranging meetings between Qatari officials and leaders of Jewish and pro-Israel advocacy groups. [18] [19] In September 2017, Muzin registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for Qatar. [20] He and Joey Allaham introduced Qataris to prominent Jewish American figures and offered them trips to Doha to meet with the Emir of Qatar and other prominent government officials. American Jewish leaders who accepted trips organized by Allaham and Muzin included Alan Dershowitz, head of the Zionist Organization of America Mort Klein, and Malcolm Hoenlein. [20] On June 6, 2018, Muzin announced on Twitter that he had stopped working for Qatar. [21] [22]

In December 2020, Muzin, Alan Dershowitz, and other criminal justice reform advocates helped seek clemency for Eliyahu (“Eli”) Weinstein, who was sentenced to 24 years in prison for fraudulent real estate transactions, the longest sentence in the history of New Jersey for such an offense. In January, President Trump commuted Weinstein's sentence to time served. [23] The New York Times wrote that Muzin and Dershowitz's "combination of access, influence and substantive expertise...produced striking results" in winning clemency. [24]

Stonington Global

Muzin is the Founder and Chairman of Stonington Global, [25] a specialized law and consulting firm based in Washington, where he focuses on strategic international advisory and private equity work and practices as an attorney. The firm provides programming services to Voice of America Persian News Network, the American government-backed media outlet that produces journalistic content for the Iranian community. [26] Stonington Global also works on pro bono issues related to criminal justice reform, religious freedom and human rights.

Personal life

Muzin is an Orthodox Jew. [27]

Related Research Articles

Daniel Samuel Senor is an American-Canadian columnist, writer, and political adviser. He was chief spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and senior foreign policy adviser to U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney during the 2012 election campaign. A frequent news commentator and contributor to The Wall Street Journal, he is co-author of the book Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle (2009). He is married to television news personality Campbell Brown.

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is an American nonprofit pro-Israel organization. Founded in 1897, as the Federation of American Zionists, it was the first official Zionist organization in the United States. Early in the 20th century, it was the primary representative of American Jews to the World Zionist Organization, espousing primarily Political Zionism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ted Cruz</span> American politician (born 1970)

Rafael Edward Cruz is an American politician, attorney, and political commentator serving as the junior United States senator from Texas since 2013. A member of the Republican Party, Cruz was the solicitor general of Texas from 2003 to 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Dershowitz</span> American lawyer and author (born 1938)

Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer and law professor known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. From 1964 to 2013, he taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appointed as the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law in 1993. Dershowitz is a regular media contributor, political commentator, and legal analyst.

Sholam Weiss is an American convicted fraudster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marc Schneier</span> American rabbi

Marc Schneier is an American rabbi and president of The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. Schneier previously served as vice-president of the World Jewish Congress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dan Sullivan (U.S. senator)</span> American politician and lawyer (born 1964)

Daniel Scott Sullivan is an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States senator from Alaska since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, Sullivan previously served as the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources from 2010 to 2013, and as the Alaska Attorney General from 2009 to 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Lee</span> American lawyer and politician (born 1971)

Michael Shumway Lee is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Utah, a seat he has held since 2011. He is a member of the Republican Party.

Elliott B. Broidy is an American former lobbyist and businessman. From 2005 to 2008, he served as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC). In 2009, he was convicted in a public corruption and bribery case in New York.

The 2016 presidential campaign of Ted Cruz, the junior United States senator from Texas, was announced on March 23, 2015. He was a candidate for the Republican Party's 2016 presidential nomination and won the second-most state contests and delegates. Cruz themed his campaign around being an outsider and a strict conservative. In the crowded early field, he chose not to directly confront the leading candidate, Donald Trump, who was also viewed as an outsider candidate. His cordial and sympathetic tone towards Trump contrasted with the more critical approach of rivals such as Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul. Had Cruz been elected, he would have been the first Cuban American U.S. president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2020 United States Senate election in Wyoming</span>

The 2020 United States Senate election in Wyoming was held on November 3, 2020, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Wyoming, concurrently with the 2020 U.S. presidential election, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections. Republican Cynthia Lummis defeated Democrat Merav Ben-David by more than 46 percentage points, becoming the first female U.S. Senator from Wyoming and succeeding incumbent Republican Mike Enzi, who did not run for reelection. This was the first open Senate seat since 1996 where Enzi was first elected. The Democratic and Republican party primary elections were held on August 18, 2020. This was the first time since 1996 that Democrats won any county for this seat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jason Greenblatt</span> American lawyer (born 1967)

Jason Dov Greenblatt is an American lawyer. He was the executive vice president and chief legal officer to Donald Trump and The Trump Organization, and his advisor on Israel. In January 2017, he was appointed as an Assistant to the President and Special Representative for International Negotiations by President Donald Trump.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewish Democratic Council of America</span> U.S. political nonprofit organization

The Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA), also known as "Jewish Dems", is an organization that defines itself as "the voice for Jewish Democrats and socially progressive, pro-Israel, and Jewish values". It was announced in August 2017, and officially launched in November 2017. JDCA was incorporated in Washington, D.C., in June 2017. JDCA has 15 chapters across the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joey Allaham</span> American businessman

Joey Allaham is a New York City businessman and entrepreneur. He founded a number of restaurants in New York including Prime Grill, Prime KO, and others. From 2017 to 2018, Allaham was a lobbyist for the government of Qatar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2024 United States Senate elections</span>

The 2024 United States Senate elections are scheduled to be held on November 5, 2024, as part of the 2024 United States elections. 33 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate will be contested in regular elections, the winners of which will serve six-year terms in the U.S. Congress from January 3, 2025, to January 3, 2031, and two special elections will be held to complete unexpired terms. Senators are divided into three classes whose terms are staggered so that a different class is elected every two years. Class 1 senators, who were last elected in 2018, will be up for election again in 2024. Numerous other federal, state, and local elections, including the U.S. presidential election and elections to the House, will also be held on this date.

The Lobby is a series of documentaries produced by Al Jazeera that investigate the influence of the Israel lobby in the United Kingdom and in the United States and their relationship to the BDS movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avi Berkowitz</span> American attorney and political adviser (born 1988)

Avrahm Berkowitz is an American attorney and political adviser who served as the Assistant to the President and Special Representative for International Negotiations from 2019 to 2021. He was an advisor to Jared Kushner in the Trump administration, and worked on the Trump peace plan and the Abraham Accords.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2024 United States Senate election in Texas</span>

The 2024 United States Senate election in Texas will be held on November 5, 2024, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the state of Texas. Incumbent Republican Senator Ted Cruz is seeking a third term in office. Primary elections will take place on March 5, 2024. If needed, runoff elections will take place on May 28, 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2022 United States Senate election in Nevada</span> Re-election of Catherine Cortez-Masto as US Senator

The 2022 United States Senate election in Nevada was held on November 8, 2022, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Nevada. Incumbent Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto won re-election to a second term, narrowly defeating Republican challenger Adam Laxalt. Nevada's election results were slowed due to state law that allowed voters to submit mail-in ballots until November 12, and allowed voters to fix clerical problems in their mail-in ballots until November 14, 2022.

References

  1. ↑ "Lobbyist sued by Trump fundraiser ends work for Qatar". Reuters . Archived from the original on 2023-06-05.
  2. 1 2 Official website of US Senator Ted Cruz Sen. Cruz Names Nick Muzin Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategy, July 2, 2014
  3. ↑ JPUpdates Sen. Cruz Names Nick Muzin As Senior Adviser, Dep. Chief of Staff, July 2, 2014
  4. ↑ Jewish Daily Telegraph: "Who are the Republican candidates’ Jewish donors?" by Ron Kampeas April 20, 2015
  5. ↑ The New York Times Weddings/Celebrations – Andrea Zucker, Nicholas Muzin, July 9, 2006
  6. ↑ Yeshiva University Alumni News Nick Muzin ’97YC, ’01E: Doctor, Lawyer, Political Strategist
  7. 1 2 3 Canadian-born Orthodox Jew Nick Muzin helps boost black GOP Sen. Tim Scott to prominence, February 12, 2013
  8. 1 2 3 4 Kampeas, Ron. "Black senator's secret weapon: an Orthodox Jew from Canada". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 2021-05-25.
  9. ↑ The Post & Courier Rep. Scott forms new PAC, January 19, 2012
  10. ↑ Blogpost: Nick Muzin
  11. ↑ CNN , June 17, 2013
  12. ↑ Mishpacha Magazine Inside the Cruz Campaign, December 23, 2015
  13. ↑ The New York Times Ted Cruz Makes the Rounds, and Matzo, in Brooklyn, April 7, 2016
  14. ↑ Yeshiva University Search Committee Picks Ari Berman To Be School’s Next President
  15. ↑ Yeshiva U Search Committee to Propose Instructor at Settlement College as Next President
  16. ↑ "Fast Track to Freedom". Mishpacha Magazine. 2019-01-22. Retrieved 2021-06-15.
  17. ↑ "Senate Passes Landmark Criminal Justice Reform | United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary". www.judiciary.senate.gov. Retrieved 2021-06-15.
  18. ↑ Tibon, Amir (8 February 2018). "Qatar Promised U.S. Jewish Leaders: Al Jazeera Documentary on D.C. 'Israel Lobby' Won't Air". Haaretz . Retrieved 11 April 2018.
  19. ↑ Surkes, Sue (8 February 2018). "American pro-Israel lobby girds for Al Jazeera exposé". The Times of Israel . Retrieved 11 April 2018.
  20. 1 2 "How the King of New York Kosher Restaurants Helped Qatar Win Over American Jewish Leaders". Mother Jones. June 13, 2018.
  21. ↑ "Key figures in Gulf crisis sever ties with Qatar". Politico. June 7, 2018.
  22. ↑ "Qatar's Efforts to Influence American Jews Continue to Unravel". Tablet. June 13, 2018.
  23. ↑ Vogel, Kenneth P. (2021-01-26). "The Road to Clemency From Trump Was Closed to Most Who Sought It". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-01-26.
  24. ↑ Vogel, Kenneth P.; Confessore, Nicholas (2021-03-21). "Access, Influence and Pardons: How a Set of Allies Shaped Trump's Choices". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-04-15.
  25. ↑ "Home". Stonington Global. Retrieved 2020-12-03.
  26. ↑ Fang, Lee (January 7, 2020). "VOA Persian Gave Editorial Contract to Former Trump Campaign Operative". The Intercept. Retrieved 2020-12-03.
  27. ↑ Jewish Insider 2016 Watch: Cruz Hires Nick Muzin, July 3, 2014
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.