"A story last year in the New York Sun said that Ledeen was advising Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso in his capacity as an associate at the Trout-Cacheris law firm. I checked records at the Justice Department’s Foreign Agents Registration office and found that Trout-Cacheris had been paid $1.5 million by the Congolese government through mid-2006 (records are not available beyond that date). The story in the Sun said Ledeen had known Sassou-Nguesso since the late-1980s and quoted him as saying that the Congolese ruler was a “terrific African diplomat.”"