As the United States continued to push for Laurent Gbagbo, the leader of Ivory Coast, to step down, two former Clinton administration officials were trying to present Gbagbo, who has clung to power despite international condemnation, in a more sympathetic light in Washington. Michael Espy, the former agriculture secretary who is now a lobbyist, has appeared on Ivorian television on behalf of Gbagbo's government, while Lanny J. Davis, former chief counsel to President Bill Clinton who was hired by Gbagbo's government this month, worked the phones as a liaison of sorts to the tainted regime. At the White House, the lobbying efforts did not appear to be getting very far. President Barack Obama telephoned President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria on Wednesday to reinforce the message that the United States wanted to see African leaders out front in the international campaign to oust Gbagbo. By all international accounts, Gbagbo was defeated by Alassane Ouattara in the Nov. 28 runoff vote for president, but Gbagbo has disputed the election results. African leaders have been working hard to dislodge Gbagbo. U.S. officials have said they will impose targeted sanctions against Gbagbo and his wife, as well as high-ranking members of his government. The World Bank said Wednesday in a statement that it was halting loans to Ivory Coast, which would mean a cutoff of the $841.9 million that the bank committed to the country in January. The bank said in the statement that was supporting African institutions 'in sending the message to President Gbagbo that he has lost the election and needs to step down.' Davis, who helped defend Clinton against impeachment, registered with the Justice Department earlier this month as an agent for Ivory Coast who would be paid $100,000 a month to 'present the facts and the law as to why there is substantial documentary evidence that President Laurent Gbagbo is the duly elected president as a result of the Nov. 28 elections.' But he insisted in an interview Wednesday that he viewed himself not as an advocate but as a 'conveyor belt' to pass information about Gbagbo to the administration and the world. Of Gbagbo, Davis said he was working through liaisons to 'try to persuade him to move to the middle' and to begin an international dialogue about the election. Davis said a speech Gbagbo gave earlier this week, in which he appeared open to international mediation, was a sign of his progress in pushing that agenda. He said that he encouraged Gbagbo to condemn the election violence in Ivory Coast, and Wednesday, the Ivorian strongman did just that, putting out a statement in which he said that he would not tolerate the killings of civilians and that anyone responsible for such violence should be prosecuted. (Despite such pronouncements, witnesses and human rights advocates say the government's security agents have beaten, shot and killed opposition activists and residents in neighborhoods known to support Ouattara.) 