By Jack Poulson – The Grayzone
A mercenary firm implicated in severe abuses in Gaza has hired a PR firm led by influential former Democrat flacks, including the spokeswoman for Biden’s Pentagon.
Meanwhile, a former State Dept spokesman who defended Israel’s crimes is now VP at a Democrat PR firm representing Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
Editor’s note: After The Grayzone published a report revealing damning new footage showing mercenaries from the UG Solutions firm firing toward crowds of desperate aid seekers in the southern Gaza Strip, the company deleted its entire press page. (The previously unreported footage had been inexplicably distributed to the media by UG Solutions itself).
Two days later, thanks to the sleuthing of journalist Jack Poulson, we learned that UG Solutions’ new press page was created by Seven Letter, a PR management firm operated by former Obama and Biden communications officials. Among those hired by Seven Letter was Sabrina Singh, the former Pentagon spokeswoman who routinely spun Israel’s crimes.
Seven Letters’ Gaza profiteering follows the high-level contract Israel’s Foreign Ministry signed with a top PR firm run by Biden veterans called SKDK. Among SKDK’s top recent hires was Vedant Patel, the former spokesman for the Biden State Department who was notorious for his absurd denials of documented Israeli crimes across occupied Palestine.
In addition to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, SKDK represents the 10/7 Project, a consortium of Jewish organizations which attacks reporters who fail to toe Israel’s line on Gaza.
Below is the article originally published by Jack Poulson and at All-Source Intelligence exposing UG Solutions’ contract with Seven Letter.
A militarized U.S. and Israeli effort to replace United Nations-affiliated aid into the occupied Gaza Strip, known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), has received international condemnation since its launch in May. Formed as an offshoot of a vehicle inspection checkpoint along Gaza’s Netzarim corridor which opened in January, the effort now employs two American firms led by former CIA officers and Green Berets to distribute meals in a manner they describe as designed to prevent looting from Hamas.
As of Friday, the United Nations human rights office reported at least 615 killings, largely by the Israeli military, near the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid distribution points.
The primary boots on the ground since January, the North Carolina-based private military contractor UG Solutions led by former Green Beret Jameson Govoni, has largely operated as a subcontractor to the Virginia-based security and logistics firm Safe Reach Solutions, which is led by former CIA covert activities chief Philip Francis Reilly. In May, the two security contractors shifted to the background, with former USAID official John Acree and the evangelical public relations executive Johnnie Moore becoming the public face via the GHF, following the resignation of the GHF’s original executive director over concerns of violations of core humanitarian principles.
In response to the widespread controversy, including from an Associated Press report on a UG Solutions contractor-turned-whistleblower, UG Solutions hired the crisis communications firm Seven Letter, whose partners include former Biden and Obama administration spokespersons.
The relationship between UG Solutions and Seven Letter was first revealed through the newly published press relations page hosted on the blogging website Medium, where ‘Seven Letter’ was listed as one of three editors. Seven Letter partner Andrew O’Brien, who spent roughly three years as a special representative under U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, confirmed his company’s relationship with UG Solutions in response to a request for comment submitted to UG Solutions. “Seven Letter is not just a crisis communications firm, but a full service public relations and strategic communications firm,” wrote Mr. O’Brien.
For roughly a six day period beginning on July 3, UG Solutions hosted at the website ugsolutions.press a detailed response to the leaked footage provided to the AP by a former contractor, including two videos which UG Solutions described as providing important context. A critical examination of the broader footage was published on Monday by the independent American news outlet The Grayzone.
When reached for comment regarding the takedown of the footage published by UG Solutions, Seven Letter’s O’Brien stated that, “The press link was not taken down, there was an error in how the links worked and that has been resolved. It is now working.” However, the apparently rewritten July 3 press release from UG Solutions — which is now falsely dated to June 3 — no longer includes the previously published videos, which were previously embedded from the video-sharing website Vimeo. “Hi– where can we view or download the full videos?” asked Medium user Kaitlyn at roughly noon ET on Friday.
Seven Letter announced one month ago that Sabrina Singh, who ended her term as President Biden’s deputy Pentagon spokesperson in January, would be joining the firm as a partner. Singh, who is also listed as a senior advisor to the Biden administration-affiliated consulting firm WestExec Advisors, was described in her Seven Letter biography as one of the “most outward facing voices on the Pentagon’s efforts to surge security assistance to Ukraine and support to Israel following the October 7th attack often appearing on local and national outlets.”
Seven Letter partner Adam Abrams was similarly a White House regional communications director for roughly the first three years of Barack Obama’s presidency.
In response to questions regarding a recent UG Solutions advertisement for a three-month unpaid internship, which pitched contributing to “AI-based intelligence fusion tools” under the leadership of “former Special Operations Forces and CIA contractors” before requesting the pronouns of potential applicants, Mr. O’Brien stated that “We have no comment on HR matters.”