In a bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal, it is revealed that Israeli officials, including Bibi Netanyahu, bribed members of Congress to vote against the Iran deal. This information comes from the NSA program of surveillance on “friendly” countries.
When Edward Snowden revealed that we spied on friendly leaders, a great hue and cry went up about the legalities and the ethics. In 2012, President Obama gave an order curtailing this program. However, he did not eliminate it entirely. Certain people were still kept under surveillance, most notably Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey, and Bibi. Because, as the NSA has said, “how could you not?”
Stepped-up NSA eavesdropping revealed to the White House how Mr. Netanyahu and his advisers had leaked details of the U.S.-Iran negotiations—learned through Israeli spying operations—to undermine the talks; coordinated talking points with Jewish-American groups against the deal; and asked undecided lawmakers what it would take to win their votes, according to current and former officials familiar with the intercepts.
Everyone has declined to comment on the activities. Of course they have. Because everyone does it to everyone else. The history of US-Israeli intelligence “relations” has a long history of both agencies getting caught spying on the other.
So, how did the NSA find out about the bribery?
In 2011, Obama and Bibi diverged over Iran. Bibi was secretly preparing for war, while the President had begun secret negotiations with Iran.
After it was determined that Bibi wasn’t going to attack, they still kept up the surveillance because of the negotiations. They wanted to make sure that Israel wasn’t going to torpedo the deal. This was done with knowledge of the members of the various Intelligence Committees.
NSA intercepts convinced the White House last year that Israel was spying on negotiations under way in Europe. Israeli officials later denied targeting U.S. negotiators, saying they had won access to U.S. positions by spying only on the Iranians.
By late 2014, White House officials knew Mr. Netanyahu wanted to block the emerging nuclear deal but didn’t know how.
On Jan. 8, John Boehner, then the Republican House Speaker, and incoming Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed on a plan. They would invite Mr. Netanyahu to deliver a speech to a joint session of Congress. A day later, Mr. Boehner calledRon Dermer, the Israeli ambassador, to get Mr. Netanyahu’s agreement.
Despite NSA surveillance, Obama administration officials said they were caught off guard when Mr. Boehner announced the invitation on Jan. 21.
Soon after, Israel’s lobbying campaign against the deal went into full swing on Capitol Hill, and it didn’t take long for administration and intelligence officials to realize the NSA was sweeping up the content of conversations with lawmakers.
Now, when Americans are caught up in surveillance of foreign persons, there are rules concerning the identifications of such. In the 1990s, the rules were tightened somewhat to require that intelligence agencies inform congressional committees when a lawmaker’s name was revealed to the executive branch in summaries of intercepted communications.
A 2011 NSA directive said direct communications between foreign intelligence targets and members of Congress should be destroyed when they are intercepted. But the NSA director can issue a waiver if he determines the communications contain “significant foreign intelligence.”
During Israel’s lobbying campaign in the months before the deal cleared Congress in September, the NSA removed the names of lawmakers from intelligence reports and weeded out personal information. The agency kept out “trash talk,” officials said, such as personal attacks on the executive branch.
Administration and intelligence officials said the White House didn’t ask the NSA to identify any lawmakers during this period.
“From what I can tell, we haven’t had a problem with how incidental collection has been handled concerning lawmakers,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He declined to comment on any specific communications between lawmakers and Israel.
The NSA reports allowed administration officials to peer inside Israeli efforts to turn Congress against the deal. Mr. Dermer was described as coaching unnamed U.S. organizations—which officials could tell from the context were Jewish-American groups—on lines of argument to use with lawmakers, and Israeli officials were reported pressing lawmakers to oppose the deal.
A U.S. intelligence official familiar with the intercepts said Israel’s pitch to undecided lawmakers often included such questions as: “How can we get your vote? What’s it going to take?”
Just before Bibi’s speech, the NSA picked up intercepts that raised alarms in the White House—Bibi wanted details from Israeli spies on the details of the Iran deal and about the latest US positions in the talks.
Which was why Secretary Kerry, speaking to reporters in Switzerland,
said he was concerned Mr. Netanyahu would divulge “selective details of the ongoing negotiations.”
The State Department said Mr. Kerry was responding to Israeli media reports that Mr. Netanyahu wanted to use his speech to make sure U.S. lawmakers knew the terms of the Iran deal.
Intelligence officials said the media reports allowed the U.S. to put Mr. Netanyahu on notice without revealing they already knew his thinking. The prime minister mentioned no secrets during his speech to Congress.
In the final days of the campaign, there were few surprises, as any information reaffirmed what everyone was saying publicly—that Bibi was lobbying Democratic lawmakers against the deal.
The biggest surprise was the confidence of Israel that they would have enough votes.
And yet this isn’t a thing yet. No one has commented on how a foreign government can BRIBE members of Congress—OUR lawmakers—into doing their bidding. Imagine if France, or Denmark, or some other country were to try to bribe Congress to vote against something a Republican President wanted? Fox News would be beating the treason drum 24/7, and there would certainly be Department of Justice involvement. But since it’s for Obama and the Iran deal?