Ed Rendell
Mike Isikoff has broken an important story on the Treasury Department investigating several former gov't officials for lobbying on behalf of an Iranian group classified by the State Department as terrorist. The story involves hundreds of thousands of speaking fees paid to the former officials' speaking bureaus, money that apparently came from the People's Mujahedin of Iran, the MEK.
The former officials were lobbying the government to delist the MEK as a terrorist group. Isikoff quotes an unnamed Obama official: "You have to ask the question, whether this is a prima facie case of material support for terrorism."
The MEK is significant because it is tied to Israel. NBC has previously reported that the group “is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service” and has been linked to the killings of Iranian scientists.
The former officials under investigation include several prominent supporters of Israel in U.S. politics: former Atty General Michael Mukasey, former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean, and former PA Gov'r Ed Rendell, who lately appeared at a fundraiser for the Israeli army.
From Isikoff's report:
[Former FBI head Louis] Freeh and [former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Hugh] Shelton are among 40 former senior U.S. government officials who have participated in a public lobbying campaign – including appearing at overseas conferences and speaking at public rallies – aimed at persuading the U.S. government to remove the MEK from the terror list.
...Edward Rendell, a former Pennsylvania governor and ex-Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, whose speaking firm also received a subpoena, has received $160,000 over the past year for appearing at about seven conferences and rallies, including some in Paris, Brussels and Geneva, according to his office. (Rendell is a contributor to MSNBC TV.)...
Rendell said that there have been weekly conference calls among a "core group" of former U.S. senior officials participating in the lobbying campaign, organized by Freeh, to talk about ways to prod the State Department to remove the MEK from the terror list and protect its followers at Camp Ashraf. He identified this group as including former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean and Mukasey — all of whom have publicly spoken out on behalf of the MEK and spoken at its rallies.
So, the Administration isn’t going to go after Republican Shills? What about Fran Townsend and Co.? Good start anyway, Hugh Shelton should be especially ashamed of himself……..
If David Brooks was the kinder, gentler neocon then Rendell is the kinder, gentler Fifth Columnist – yet the work they do is as bad as Bill Kristol and AIPAC
Could it be, finally these fanatics may face the music, don’t hold your breath. Glenn Greenwald had a more in depth article on this at: link to salon.com
Could it be, finally these fanatics may face the music, don’t hold your breath.
Perhaps. They might have to forgo speaking engagements in Canada or jump through some hoops to enter the country. Section 34(1) of the immigration act protects Canadians from people who fund, support or engage in terrorism. So it would be possible for groups there to protest against admitting them for visits and demand they be banned like anti-war UK MP Galloway.
Read more on that at: link to dailymail.co.uk
It’s also likely that they’ll spend more than they’ve earned on legal fees. So it will be interesting to see if they drop their public support for the MEK.
I think that technically Galloway wasn’t banned – he was threatened with being banned and did not actually test the waters.
link to ccla.org
NYT wrote about this too… link to nytimes.com
WASHINGTON — For more than a year, prominent former American officials have been giving well-paid speeches in support of an Iranian opposition group that is fighting to reverse its 15-year-old designation by the State Department as a terrorist organization.
Now the Treasury Department appears to have begun an inquiry to see whether the speaking fees were being paid by the group, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People’s Mujahedeen, known as the M.E.K. Americans are prohibited by law from doing business with designated terrorist groups.
I hope this goes somewhere but won’t hold my breath. Just another example of corruption and being above all US laws.
My guess is the MEK’s funds and speakers fees come from Israel or Israel first sources.
That Israel supports the MEK which is a terrorist group is well known.
“is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service”
Israel sure supports a lot of terrorist groups. MEK, PKK, PFLP, etc. And Hasbarists seem to think that it is some kind of a joke to implicate Mossad whenever a suspicious ‘terror’ event takes place.
This is the same Israel whose leaders have called both Hezbollah and Hamas “extensions” and “proxies” of Iran. I’m pretty sure Bibi has said “Iranian terror proxies” more than a couple times.
By Israel’s own logic, MEK, PKK, and PFLP are “Israeli terror proxies” except I have a feeling that Mossad is far more involved in these activities than they claim Iran is for Hezbollah (and Hamas to a lesser extent).
Israel baits their own people to do their dirty work for the “good” of Israel. That involves lending foreign passports to be used in spying activity, unknowingly (and illegally from an immigration stand point) staffing a front for a spying/intelligence operation while running scams to fund the op. “Freelance” order taking. Sayninam they call them. And if they aren’t ‘legitimately’ training/supporting terror groups, they’re doing it under the guise of radical nutters taking advantage of gullible youths (most of the time). Or stirring up sectarian violence. It’s sickening. CIA and MI5 get name dropped sometimes in these things too, probably because they both have their share of double agents.
Sounds like a movie, except it’s real. Don’t know why people laugh about it and call it conspiracy.
Why are you referring to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, whose general secretary and hundreds of members are currently imprisoned by Israel, which has always been quite clear on Palestinian national constants, as an “Israeli terror proxy”?
This is a very interesting development. Glenn Greenwald has also been writing about this for some time.
I’m not optimistic that the investigation will not be swept under the carpet, but if it was credible and followed through, it would be a truly amazing development. Imagine seeing Giuliani, Woolsey, Howard Dean and and a whole skew of the political elite (incluting some high ranking military people) swept up and tarnished by this investigation?
That I would love to see!!
Do read the Greenwald article, really lays it out.
Oddly enough this am in the car I heard the old Johnny Cash song ‘there’s a man going round taking names, gonna treat everyone the same”.
Well, take names now, we might eventually have a chance to get these cretins.
According to this Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, there are more than Rendell involved:
“Worldview: Why single out Rendell on MEK?”
link to philly.com
FROM COMMON DREAMS, 3/16/12:
SOURCE – link to commondreams.org
* Chutzpah, thy name is Fran Townsend!
SEE GLENN GREENWALD HIGHLIGHT HER SICKENING HYPOCRISY: Washington’s high-powered terrorist supporters, by Glenn Greenwald, Salon, 3/12/12
LINK – link to salon.com
P.S. FROM THE MSNBC ARTICLE BY ISIKOFF:
SOURCE – link to openchannel.msnbc.msn.com
RE: “Rendell is under investigation for ties to Iranian terror
group” ~ Weiss
ALSO SEE: Washington’s high-powered terrorist supporters, by Glenn Greenwald, Salon, 3/12/12
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to salon.com
P.S. ALSO SEE:
• Ex-US Officials Face ‘Material Support’ Probe for Terror Links, by Common Dreams, 3/16/12
LINK – link to commondreams.org
• Justice Department Investigating Whether MEK Speakers Accepted Illegal Fees from Terror Group, by Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam, 3/13/12
LINK – link to richardsilverstein.com
• The MEK’s Useful Idiots, by Philip Giraldi, Antiwar.com, 3/08/12
LINK – link to original.antiwar.com
P.P.S. ALSO SEE: Speakers bureau works for Iranian terror group, by Justin Elliott, Salon, 9/07/11
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to salon.com
The Treasury Department is one of the most intransparent and irresponsible agencies in the government when it comes to Middle East matters. They refuse to respond to FOIAs about the funding flows to illegal West Bank settlements. Even Senate Foreign Relations queries about why AIPAC was granted tax-exempt status received only cursory and dismissive responses.
As in previous cases involving illegal activity in the US, the following arguments will be advanced behind closed doors. Was the PR effort done in the name of advancing Israel’s security, misguided or not? If insiders argue that it was, this case, like so many before it, will be swept under the rug. Attempts to find out what happened will be quashed for a half century.
Israel and her supporters are pushing the limits on many fronts. Flying too close to the sun?
Good that Isikoff picked this up, but I’m not sure what if anything he has “broken.” As other commenters have pointed out, this story has been all over the place in recent days. If we’re giving credit to journalists, I’d say Greenwald deserves a lot more, because he’s kept this story alive for months, when no one else was covering it. But the real credit for “breaking” it should go to Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor – as far as I can tell, everyone else is just building on the very detailed report on this he published last August.
One important thing Greenwald has done that I don’t remember seeing in any of the other coverage is to highlight the fact that the U.S. has charged a number of people with providing “material support to terrorists” for things like postings to YouTube or links on a website – actions for which they received no money and that obviously did a lot less (if anything) to benefit the organizations in question than what Rendell, Freeh, et al. have done for the MEK. But they got prosecuted because they’re not big shots – and in most cases because they’re Muslims.
I’m not sure how independent these proceedings are from the Obama Administration but after all the officials spilling the beans about the true state of Iranian nuclear program, it could be like high noon between Obama and the neocons/likudniks (aka Israel firsters).
I mean it looks like they could be hitting hard on all the undercover operations aiming at bullshitting the American people. They are below the radar for the general public but very real for the organizers. A bit as if Bush had started going after Doug Feith in 2003… Anyway, I’m probably dreaming.
If we can waterboard poor Arab chaps who just happened to stand around when the US government needed some success story, we surely can waterboard Rendell over his support for terrorists.
I had a dream last night, I did not want it to end, John Bolton shuffling around Gitmo in an orange jump suit and chains.
Wolfowitz, Feith, Rice, Luti, Wurmser, Bolton, Cheney, Addington, Gerect, Kristol. Gitmo would have to build a new wing
The bigger question is: Will he lose his spots as an analyst on (Philadelphia) Eagles Post Game Live?
Wondered where the Rick Perry at Foreign Policy then Richard Engel story went. Did we hear one Rep demand an investigation into Israel funding, arming and training the MEK (on the US terrorist list) Turns out an investigation of some sort. Rendell, Dean demonstrates how so called liberals make a hard hard turn right when it comes to Israel and the I lobbies agenda.
I have often wondered when stories like this are broken is there any element of alerting those who are being investigated. The Aipac espionage investigation alert. Was that Leslie Stahl who alerted of the FBI’s investigation of Aipac Judge Orders Justice Department Investigation of Leak to CBS – The …www.nysun.com/national/judge-orders-justice…investigation/38288/You +1′d this publicly. Undo
Aug 22, 2006 – At that point, “The logical investigation is that you would get Lesley Stahl or her producer to identify who their confidential source is,” Ms.
Stahl has done a few programs on 60 minutes on the I/P issue where I felt she was basically promoting the David Project.
Who alerted Jane “waddling on over to interfere in the Aipac investigation” Harman about the investigation into her ‘waddling” and contacts?
But will Israel suffer any consequences for funding, arming and training the MEK (on the US terrorist list)
Iranian group’s big-money push to get off US terrorist list – CSMonitor …www.csmonitor.com/…/Iranian-group-s-big-money-push-to-get-off-…Cached
You +1′d this publicly. Undo
Aug 8, 2011 – 4 in Washington at a panel organized to warn of the risks of delisting … Taking the MEK off the terrorist list, they have written, would “trigger a …
Remember that panel aired on CSpan that was pushing for taking MEK off the US terrorist list
Iran’s Nuclear, Terrorist Threats and Rights Abuses – C-SPAN Video …www.c-spanvideo.org/appearance/599441381Cached
Why is it thought that the MKO is financed by ISrael? perhaps, Israel is funding the lobbyists. The MKO has the underground organization in Iran. Israel needs assassins. What other proof is there that Israel finances the MKO?
Iran executed 78,000 of MKO’s captured members after the war with Iraq. The MKO aided in the brutal suppression of the Basra insurrection. What is strange about the Maryam and her MKO is that it is a cult. It is a religion unto itself.