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But the 10 remaining senators in Haiti challenged Mr. Joseph’s legitimacy almost immediately, saying they wanted to form a new government. They argued that Mr. Joseph had already been replaced as prime minister through the nomination of Ariel Henry, a neurosurgeon, and said that the head of the Senate, Joseph Lambert, should become president.
Last weekend, the United States switched its support to Mr. Henry from Mr. Joseph, who
stepped down as prime minister on Monday and said he would become the foreign minister. The moves drew praise from the State Department, but criticism from Mr. Lambert.
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Mr. Harvin said he had been approached by three prospective Haitian clients since the assassination but had not signed any of them. He said the mystery around the still-unsolved murder of Mr. Moïse heightened the risk around the lobbying derby.
“What happens if you spend six weeks positioning a candidate as credible, and then it turns out they had something to do with this?” Mr. Harvin said.
The text chat obtained by The Times provides insight into the ways in which various players in Haitian politics are thinking about influencing opinion in the United States.
One participant was Laurent Lamothe, a former prime minister of Haiti, who had hired a public relations firm to promote a book he published last month that cast him as among the most effective Haitian leaders in recent years.
Another was Damian M. Merlo, a lobbyist and consultant who had worked on the presidential campaigns of both Mr. Moïse and his predecessor as president, Michel Martelly, who is seen
as among those jockeying for control. Mr. Merlo had accompanied Mr. Martelly during a trip to Washington in late June to interview other lobbyists, and he also has a
contract of $25,000 a month to lobby for the Haitian Embassy in Washington.
They were joined in the group chat by a pair of lobbyists from Mercury as well as an influential Haitian politician and the country’s ambassador to Washington.
Michel Martelly, a former president of Haiti, is seen as among those jockeying for power.Credit...Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Bocchit Edmond, the ambassador, sent a clip to the group chat of a video interview in which Representative Andy Levin, Democrat of Michigan, was asked whether his opposition to the United States’ supporting Haitian armed forces may have contributed to the circumstances that caused the assassination.
“He deflected and was obviously caught off guard,” Mr. Edmond wrote. “We should really use this clip to show how much he is undermining the country’s security.”
Mr. Levin, who is co-chairman of the House Haiti Caucus, criticized the lobbying effort. “The funds of the Haitian government should be spent on lifting up the Haitian people and not arguing in Washington,” he said in an interview.
Stanley Lucas, a political operative who was a close ally of Mr. Moïse, wrote in the chat that an opposition political party, Inite, “seems to be the political arm of the assassination and the plot,” and called Mr. Lambert “the Coordinator of Inite” and Mr. Henry “a member of Inite.”
Mr. Lamothe appeared to pin the blame for the assassination on a handful of politicians and wealthy businessmen, including Reginald Boulos, a doctor turned businessman who had been openly preparing for a presidential campaign of his own for months before the assassination.
In a voice message sent to the chat, Mr. Lamothe noted that Mr. Boulos, who already had lobbyists and consultants working for him, had added a lobbyist around the time of the assassination to promote an agreement under which Mr. Lambert would become president.
Pressing in the group chat for a public-relations campaign to demand action to find the “masterminds” of the assassination — one of whom he claimed was Mr. Boulos — he asked the lobbyists, “Can we get the plan going quickly.”
“Let’s discuss tonight when I see you,” responded Morris L. Reid, a partner in Mercury Public Affairs.
The 10 remaining members of Haiti’s Senate said that Joseph Lambert, above, their leader, should become president.Credit...Federico Rios for The New York Times
In an interview, Mr. Lamothe said he “cannot go public and name anyone” as being behind the assassination and claimed his comments in the chat were being taken out of context. But neither he nor Mr. Reid responded to questions about the meeting or in the group chat. Mr. Lucas, who years ago was accused of
undermining American policy in Haiti, said in text messages that he “firmly” stood by his comments and again pointed to what he characterized as possible links between the sitting prime minister, Mr. Henry, and the plot to assassinate the president.
Mr. Edmond, the Haitian ambassador, brushed aside questions about the efforts by Mr. Lamothe and Mr. Lucas to blame opposition politicians for the assassination.
“Everyone in the group is free to write something, to write their feelings,” he said in an interview. “As you see, I did not write it.”
He also defended his country’s lobbying spending and activity.
“Many countries are paying for lobbyists here in Washington. That’s the Washington culture,” he said.
In
a news release issued by an American public relations firm he
retained for $5,000 a month starting in May, Mr. Boulos said the assassination was “a dark day for Haiti,” while also calling for free and fair elections. The lobbyist with whom Mr. Boulos entered into a
$5,000-a-month contract the day after the assassination, Arthur Estopinan,
released a statement expressing shock about the killing and suggested it could be linked to “increasing violence around the drug trade.”
Mr. Boulos had also hired Joe Miklosi, a former Democratic politician in Colorado, to a
$10,000-a-month contract in May to raise money and awareness in the United States for a prospective presidential campaign.
A week after the assassination, though, Mr. Boulos held an emotional call with some of his American consultants to ask them to stand down, explaining he was suspending his presidential efforts out of concern for his safety, according to Mr. Miklosi and others familiar with the call.
Mr. Miklosi said that Mr. Boulos’s political party “is moving forward,” and predicted that whoever holds power in Port-au-Prince was likely to devote significant energy to Washington.
Haitian politicians, he said, believe “that whoever the U.S. blesses, regardless of whether it’s a Republican or Democratic administration, that’s who’s going to win.”
