Rafik Hariri Center Senior Fellow Amy Hawthorne is quoted by Al-Monitor on Senator Leahy’s latest comments on US aid to Egypt:
“People in the administration know that if they had tried to make the democracy certification now … there would have been some extremely skeptical people on the Hill, including Leahy. So they didn’t do that,” said Amy Hawthorne, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. “What’s so fascinating about Leahy’s strong pushback is that, even while they’re avoiding the democracy certification decision for now, he’s still putting the brakes on any FMF moving forward yet, because of his very serious concerns about Egypt’s lack of democratic progress and human rights abuses.”