Joe Wilson attempted to pass the MEGOBARI Act last year, but it was unsuccessful. Now, he is trying to cause real harm to Georgia and its government through a relatively innocuous legislative change, said Nikoloz Samkharadze, chairman of the parliamentary Foreign Relations Committee, in an interview with the GPB First Channel.

Samkharadze commented on the Countering China’s Control of the Caucasus Act recently adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives. This act mandates the preparation of a classified report on “Russian and Chinese intelligence activities in Georgia.”

“In recent periods, relations between Georgia and the new US administration have been reset, and a rather positive dynamic can be observed. Of course, Joe Wilson is not a friend of Georgia. He is a strong supporter of our opposition, and the opposition is cooperating with the same lobbying company that financially supports him. Therefore, last year he wanted to pass the ‘MEGOBARI Act,’ which he failed to do, and now he is trying, through a relatively harmless legislative amendment, to inflict specific harm on Georgia and its government. In reality, this act is meaningless. It is unusual to openly call for such things. How is the US government supposed to investigate this? Should intelligence agents be openly deployed to ‘recruit’ Georgian officials and obtain information from them—is that what this means? The act also required the preparation of a five-year strategy. The US and Georgia are working on a new partnership plan, and this will happen in any case; we will have an action plan. Therefore, all of this is an attempt to save face after the failure of the ‘MEGOBARI Act,’ while relations between the two countries are actually developing quite actively. This is Joe Wilson trying to save face. Once again, it is an attempt to portray Georgia negatively. Whenever the United States has tensions with a country, Joe Wilson mentions that country. He once even mentioned Venezuela, as if we supported them—we are sometimes labeled pro-Venezuelan, pro-Iranian, pro-Chinese, or pro-Russian. In other words, whichever country is higher on the scale of confrontation with the US, Joe Wilson does not miss the opportunity to mention it. This is a simple game that Georgian society does not accept,” Samkharadze said.