History Shows USA Will Not Pass AIPAC Bill
Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie introduced H.R. 8809 on Thursday. The bill, the Americans Insist on Political Agent Clarity Act, would require the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to register with the Department of Justice as a foreign agent under the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Massie filed the bill five days before a primary he says he may lose, and will lose to a candidate sponsored by pro-Israel lobby groups, with Ed Gallrein taking over $11 million in total donations from lobby representing Israeli views in the USA.
The bill is just the third serious attempt to compel AIPAC under FARA since 1962. The first two failed, and unfortunately, this time is unlikely to be any different.
In 1962, John F. Kennedy’s Department of Justice pressured AIPAC’s predecessor, the American Zionist Council, to register as a foreign agent. Kennedy’s assassination ended that effort. AIPAC was incorporated as a separate organisation in 1963 and the pressure dissolved. In 1988, former Senator William Fulbright and former senior CIA officer Victor Marchetti unsuccessfully petitioned the Department of Justice to register the lobby under the Act. In 2005, the prosecution of AIPAC officials Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman raised the possibility that the group itself would be implicated. The charges against Rosen and Weissman were dismissed and no action was taken against AIPAC. The lobby has not registered under FARA for sixty-three years, despite fulfilling the definition outlined in the legislation.
The bill enters a Congress that has spent the past two months proving how thoroughly AIPAC sits inside it. In March, the House passed an AIPAC-backed Iran sanctions bill with 296 cosponsors, which the lobby group celebrated on their own website. In April, the Democratic National Committee voted down a resolution that would have condemned the lobby’s influence in primaries. It wasn’t a call to investigate the lobby, nor even a call to launch an investigation, it was simply an effort to make a public statement on the proven influence. The resolution failed. Speaker Mike Johnson, in Massie’s own description, has the ear of AIPAC, which demanded sixteen Middle East votes in a single April.
The same lobby is spending more on Massie’s primary than any group has ever spent on a Republican primary. AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project, dropped $2.6 million against him. The Republican Jewish Coalition added $4 million. Total pro-Israel spending against Massie sits between $5.7 and $9.8 million. Senior political operatives of the Trump regime, Chris LaCivita and Tony Fabrizio, raised over $2 million for Massie’s opponent from three pro-Israel billionaires: Paul Singer, John Paulson, and a vehicle linked to Miriam Adelson. Massie himself puts the lobby’s share of his opponent’s funding at 95 percent. The Kentucky 4th primary is now the most expensive House primary in American history, with over $25 million spent on advertising.
H.R. 8809 will be referred to the House Judiciary Committee. We do not believe it will get a hearing and it almost certainly will not reach the floor. The majority of U.S. politicians in the Congress and Senate take money from pro-Israel lobbyists, and the lobbyists are spending too aggressively for Massie's removal to be anything other than likely.
The filing is not pointless for being doomed. AIPAC has operated a Jerusalem office since 1982. Its nonprofit arm funds the number-one destination for privately-sponsored congressional travel. It briefs members of Congress on Israeli military operations. Leaked 2018 documents from the Israeli regime’s Ministry of Justice showed internal concern that FARA compliance would damage the reputation of Israeli-directed American groups, and that donors would be reluctant to fund them if they were registered.
AIPAC will not be registered by the Congress it funds. It will not be registered by the Justice Department of a regime whose senior operatives take pro-Israel billionaire money. It will not be registered next week and it will not be registered next year.
The unfortunate reality is that Israel money is a solid part of U.S. politics, and we are not in a world where those politicians are open to allowing that change. Whether we will ever see a USA willing to tackle this funding is harder to tell, but equally unlikely as far as we can see.
They should start taking the money and then voting against Israel on every single bill...Give AIPAC a giant middle finger until they get it...MAGA and most American "Christians" are so fucking stupid/corrupt...DISGUSTING!!