Something we wrote about on Israellycool back in 2015 has been completely confirmed. Obama’s State Department and the political organisation that helped elect him twice conspired to subvert Israeli democracy.
The good news is, they failed. The cover up to hide the evidence is also unravelling in front of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (Washington Free Beacon):
A State Department official deleted emails that included information about a secret campaign to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the country’s last election, according to a Senate investigatory committee that determined the Obama administration transferred tax funds to anti-Netanyahu groups.
The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations disclosed in a massive report on Tuesday that the Obama administration provided U.S. taxpayer dollars to the OneVoice Movement, a liberal group that waged a clandestine campaign to smear and oust Netanyahu from office.
OneVoice, which was awarded $465,000 in U.S. grants through 2014, has been under congressional investigation since 2015, when it was first accused of funneling money to partisan political groups looking to unseat Netanyahu. This type of behavior by non-profit groups is prohibited under U.S. tax law.
The investigation determined that OneVoice redirected State Department funds to anti-Netanyahu efforts and that U.S. officials subsequently erased emails containing information about the administration’s relationship with the non-profit group.
….
“The State Department was unable to produce all documents responsive to the Subcommittee’s requests due to its failure to retain complete email records of Michael Ratney, who served as U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem during the award and oversight of the OneVoice grants,” the report states.
Investigators “discovered this retention problem because one important email exchange between OneVoice and Mr. Ratney … was produced to the Subcommittee only by OneVoice,” the report continues. “After conducting additional searches, the Department informed the Subcommittee that it was unable to locate any responsive emails from Mr. Ratney’s inbox or sent mail.”
Back in 2015 as the election here in Israel started to heat up, Mirabelle first reported on the political operative sent by Obama to help oust Netanyahu (Jan 26 2015): Former Obama Director Working In Israeli Campaign
It’s true of course that Bird is not Obama and Bird is free to do as he wishes. But in light of the close connection he has to the President, and in light of the President’s overreaction to the perceived “breach of protocol” in Netanyahu’s acceptance of Speaker of the House John Boehner’s invitation to address Congress, it is hard to imagine that this was done without Obama’s blessing.
Let’s remember: this came partly out of Obama’s incandescent rage when Netanyahu had the temerity and impudence to stand up for Israel’s legitimate interests and against the Dark Lord Obama’s Iran/Boeing deal.
As the Washington Free Beacon started reporting back in early 2015, and Mirabelle added to, we saw denials, obfuscations and lies flowing freely from the State Department:
The claim that State Department funds are being used to support negotiations, but not for the V15 campaign, is simply not credible. Dollars and staffing within an organization are fungible, and funding that may be earmarked for one purpose in an organization will simply free up the organization’s funding for a different purpose. Staffers are not likely to firewall themselves off from each other to ensure that their work only supports one purpose and not another.
Mirabelle continued on Feb 10th 2015 with this:
Two weeks ago it was widely reported that the US State Department had funded OneVoice, which is working with the V15 group in their anti-Netanyahu campaign. Last week the Free Beacon reported that the US tax-exempt group Ameinu was funding and working with the Israeli group Givat Haviva to target “Get Out The Vote” efforts, including driving people to the polls, specifically in demographics that typically vote for liberal parties, and that former Obama campaign operatives are involved.
Yesterday, the same paper reported that members of Givat Haviva met with US embassy officials, including the deputy mission chief, the CIA station chief, and the cultural attaché at the embassy in Tel Aviv, on January 29 of this year. Moreover,
The State Department helped the nonprofit group Givat Haviva secure last-minute visas for a delegation of Arab-Israeli mayors, which is in the United States this week meeting with civic leaders and attending discussions on voter outreach and community organizing. The delegation arrived on Feb. 4 and is in Washington, D.C., through Wednesday.
Obama sees the Iran deal as his legacy but it always was and has increasingly been seen as an abject surrender to Iran and to hugely powerful commercial lobbying interests in the USA such as Boeing. As it stands attempts are underway to block Boeing’s huge deal to sell planes to Iran with legislation and who knows what else will unravel.
For all Israellycool’s posts on V15 you can look here. We had fun pointing out when V15 used obviously stock photos from anywhere but Israel in their campaign advertising to push Israelis into electing “anyone but Bibi”.
The Obama administration, from the day it took office, looks to have been one of the dirtiest and sneakiest in the history of the United States especially when it comes to Israel and the middle east: helping with funds for Iron Dome (a system the US will no doubt make use of itself) doesn’t come anywhere close to making up for their perfidy.
