Re: The Chelsea Clinton fundraiser that should worry Hillary’s pro-Israel backers

From:dcheng@hillaryclinton.com
To: mbronfein@gmail.com
Date: 2016-01-27 14:16
Subject: Re: The Chelsea Clinton fundraiser that should worry Hillary’s pro-Israel backers

Thanks for flagging - will look into this asap

On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 11:13 AM, Michael Bronfein
wrote:

> I am fielding quite a few concerns over this.. , seems to have some viral
> qualities.. FYI
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> *From: *Cary Luskin
> *Subject: **Fwd: The Chelsea Clinton fundraiser that should worry
> Hillary’s pro-Israel backers*
> *Date: *January 27, 2016 at 10:34:22 AM EST
> *To: *mbronfein@gmail.com
>
>
>
>
> The Chelsea Clinton fundraiser that should worry Hillary’s pro-Israel
> backers
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>
> Comments 92
>
>
> By Jennifer Rubin January
> 25
>
>
> [image: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reacts during a
> plenary session at the United Nations building in Vienna, Austria July 14,
> 2015. Iran and six major world powers reached a nuclear deal on Tuesday,
> capping more than a decade of on-off negotiations with an agreement that
> could potentially transform the Middle East, and which Israel called an
> "historic surrender". REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY]Iranian
> Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reacts during a plenary session at
> the United Nations building in Vienna, Austria July 14, 2015.
> (REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger)
>
> For $250,”friends” — or $1000 for a “champion” (photo included) — you too
> can attend a fundraiser with Chelsea Clinton for her mother at the home
> of Michael and Sholeh Chegini in Newport Coast, California, according to an
> invitation to the event obtained by Right Turn. Michael Chegini served on
> theboard of directors
>
> and thereafter the advisory board
> of
> the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a notorious group with
> links to the Iranian regime
> that
> opposed, among other things, any sanctions on Iran.
>
> “The Clintons never miss an opportunity to put money ahead of principle,”
> a spokesman for the Republican Jewish Coalition told me. “They should know
> better than raising money from folks whose primary concern has been
> supporting the NIAC — a notorious supporter of the Radical Islamic Mullahs
> in Iran. Instead as is always the case, the Clintons have thrown principle
> out the window in exchange for cold hard cash.”
>
> The NIAC, you may recall, was forced to pay damages for a spurious
> lawsuit against blogger Hassan Daioleslam, who revealed the NIAC’s
> activities on behalf of the Islamist fundamentalist government that is
> dedicated to Israel’s destruction. (A federal court found
> in
> 2012 “that the work of NIAC president and founder Tritra Parsi was ‘not
> inconsistent with the idea that he was first and foremost an advocate
> for the regime.’ The judge essentially found it was conceivable that NIAC
> could reasonably be accused of lobbying on behalf of Iran, so Daioleslam’s
> blog posts weren’t defamatory.”)
>
> This is not the first Clinton encounter with the NIAC. Bill Clinton, while
> Hillary was secretary of state, according to a Fox News report
> ,
> tried through an aide to get approval for a speaking engagement with the
> NIAC: “An aide to Bill Clinton asked the State Department in 2012 about the
> former president potentially delivering a paid speech to an Iranian
> government-tied group that has pushed for an end to all U.S. sanctions
> against Tehran, according to an email exclusively obtained by Fox News.”
> Ultimately Bill Clinton did not do the speech, nor other “paid speaking
> gigs in North Korea and the Republic of the Congo – an event that would
> have included notorious Democratic Republic of the Congo leader Joseph
> Kabila.” (Some may also recall the group tried to block
> former
> Obama adviser Dennis Ross’s appointment).
>
> It does however suggest that the Clintons are quite comfortable with
> taking money from people with ties to apologists for the Iranian regime. It
> is not clear whether this falls under the category
> of
> the Clintons willingness to take money for themselves and their foundation
> from
> scoundrels and despots (e.g. Arab countries that oppress women, Russian
> uranium oligarchs) or whether this signals specifically that propagandists
> for Iran would have Hillary Clinton’s ear should she make it to the White
> House. Former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton sees it as the
> latter. “This is yet more evidence that a Clinton foreign policy on Iran
> will be no different from what we have now,” he told me.
>
> The event should also serve as a reminder to Clinton’s pro-Israel backers,
> argues Noah Pollak, executive director of the conservative Emergency
> Committee for Israel: “So it is up to her pro-Israel donors to insist that
> she cannot dance at two weddings. To the extent they do not deliver this
> message, they share part of the blame for the Democratic Party’s slide into
> anti-Israel politics.”
>
> In any event, it is one more reminder that with Clinton comes a whole
> parade of influence peddlers, some of whom have links to interests contrary
> to American national security. Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise
> Institute, observing that the fundraiser “just isn’t good politics,” asks,
> “Surely there’s someone else who can help Hillary raise money?” Well, there
> seems to be no one from whom Bill and Hillary Clinton will not take money.
>
> Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Post, offering reported
> opinion from a conservative perspective.
>
>
>

--
*Dennis Cheng*
National Finance Director
Hillary for America
dcheng@hillaryclinton.com