Jacob Sullum, Newsweek, November 29 2016:… “My ties to them are very open,” Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney, recently toldThe New York Times. “We worked very hard to get them delisted.” But under the broad understanding of the federal ban on “material assistance” to terrorist groups that the Supreme Court upheld in 2010, that work was pretty clearly a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison …
Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult) hanging on the Trump administration?
Iraq: Saddam used Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult) to suppress the Iraqi people
IF CLINTON BELONGS IN PRISON, SO DOES GIULIANI
Rudy Giuliani speaks before Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump at a rally in Cincinnati on October 13. Jacob Sullum writes that there is a strong case to be made that the former New York City mayor, who reportedly is in the running for secretary of state in the Trump administration, committed multiple federal felonies by assisting Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian opposition group that the State Department listed as a terrorist organization until September 2012.
MIKE SEGAR/REUTERS
During the presidential campaign, Rudy Giuliani argued (correctly) that Hillary Clinton could be charged with a federal felony for mishandling classified information through her sloppy email practices as secretary of state even if she did not intend to break the law.
But there is also a strong case to be made that the former New York City mayor, who reportedly is in the running for secretary of state in the Trump administration, committed multiple federal felonies by assisting Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian opposition group that the State Department listed as a terrorist organization until September 2012.
Related: Rudy Giuliani’s Flimsy Foreign Policy Credentials
“My ties to them are very open,” Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney, recently toldThe New York Times. “We worked very hard to get them delisted.” But under the broad understanding of the federal ban on “material assistance” to terrorist groups that the Supreme Court upheld in 2010, that work was pretty clearly a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
The “material support” statute, 18 USC 2339B, prohibits the provision of “training,” defined as “instruction or teaching designed to impart a specific skill”; “expert advice or assistance,” defined as “advice or assistance derived from scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge”; “personnel,” which means any person, including oneself, who works under the organization’s “direction or control”; or any other “service,” which is not defined at all. In Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the Supreme Court said the law covers volunteer work aimed at helping listed organizations resolve their grievances through nonviolent means.
While such advice and advocacy would ordinarily be protected by the First Amendment, the court said, “the government’s interest in combating terrorism” justifies the speech restrictions imposed by the ban on material support.
Notably, the Supreme Court refused to read the law as requiring an intent to further a terrorist organization’s illegal activities. As long as someone knows he is assisting a “foreign terrorist organization” (FTO), it is no defense to say he only meant to promote its lawful activities. Giuliani, who “worked very hard to get [the MEK] delisted,” obviously knew the group was considered an FTO.
Nor is it necessary that someone providing material support to an FTO receive compensation in return, although Giuliani apparently was paid handsomely for his speeches on behalf of the MEK. According to the court, the difference between protected and prohibited advocacy is not whether money changes hands; it’s whether the advocacy is “performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization.” By announcing that “my ties to [the MEK] are very open,” then, Giuliani is effectively confessing to a crime.
I am not saying Giuliani should go to prison for his efforts to rehabilitate the MEK. The State Department’s list is arbitrary and shaped by political considerations, the MEK had a strong argument that it should no longer be considered an FTO, and in any case peaceful advocacy of lawful activities should never be treated as a crime. Knowingly providing material assistance to an FTO (which Giuliani did) is not necessarily the same as knowingly providing material assistance to terrorism. For the sake of fairness and freedom of speech, the law’s mens rea requirement should be stronger.
The same goes for 18 USC 793, which Clinton arguably broke by allowing classified information to be removed “from its proper place of custody” through “gross negligence,” a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. A conviction under that law should require more than negligence, because it should not be possible to accidentally commit a crime. That is the main reason James Comey gave for declining to recommend charges against Clinton: Although the law does not require criminal intent, justice does.
But Giuliani was not willing to cut Clinton any such slack. As far as he was concerned, she violated the letter of the law, so she should have been prosecuted. It did not matter whether she realized she was breaking the law.
By that same reasoning, Giuliani should be prosecuted for providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. It does that matter that he did not view the MEK as a terrorist group; it’s enough that the State Department did. Nor does it matter that he did not intend to promote terrorism, since the law does not include any such mens rea requirement.
If Hillary Clinton belongs in prison, so does Rudy Giuliani.
Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a nationally syndicated columnist.
(END))
***
(Massoud Rajavi and his pay master Saddam Hussein)
Remember.Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult) was one of the excuses of US attacking Iraq
Remember.Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult) was one of the excuses of US attacking Iraq
Mojahedin khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult) the ending stage of the radicalization process
Massoud Khodabandeh, Huffington Post: Can Albania Meet its Obligations and De-radicalize an Influx of Terrorists into Europe?
Albania: What would a de-radicalization program for the Mojahedin Khalq (Rajavi cult) involve
Camp New Iraq (Formerly Ashraf), now HQ of Anti ISIS forces in Dialy provance
Massoud Khodabandeh: Will President Rouhani meet genuine human rights advocates halfway?
Former U.S. Officials Make Millions Advocating For Terrorist Organization (2011)
The Life of Camp Ashraf,
Mojahedin-e Khalq Victims of Many Masters
Link to the full description of Mojahedin (MEK, MKO) Logo (pdf file)
(Rajavi cult or MKO aslo known as Saddam’s Private Army)
Sydney hostage-taker was affiliated with Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult)
Document on Mojahedin Khalq released by RAND (The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq, A Policy Conundrum)
Wondering at those Americans who stand under the flag of
Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, NCRI, Rajavi cult) only to
LOBBY for the murderers of their servicemen
Also read:
Press TV, November 28 2016:… Describing MKO as “bizarre and brutal” with “plenty of American blood on its hands, as well as that of thousands of Iranians killed while the group was a strike force serving [former Iraqi dictator] Saddam Hussein” during his war on Iran in the 1980s, US-based magazine Politicorevealed in a Saturday report that former New York City’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former
The MEK (aka Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, PMOI, NCRI, Rajavi cult ….) and Its American Fans
Daniel Larison, The American Conservatives, November 27 2016:… One of the more troubling things about American MEK supporters is their willingness to whitewash the group’s past as well as its present-day behavior. They aren’t content to work with an avowedly bad group against a common enemy, but feel compelled to pretend that the group is upstanding and noble. At an appearance in Paris last year, Giuliani …
Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, Politico Magazine, November 24 2016:… Press accounts of MeK support by Giuliani and these others often treat their ties as a curiosity or, at most, some kind of peccadillo, because the group was taken off the State Department list in 2012. I was the coordinator for counterterrorism at that time, and my office was responsible for leading the effort to decide whether …
Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult) hanging on the Trump administration?
Mazda Parsi, Nejat Society, November 22 2016:… In March 2012, Giuliani traveled to Paris to speak at an MEK conference alongside the group’s secretive leader Maryam Rajavi. While there, he called the U.S. military base in Iraq where the United States wanted to relocate the MEK a “concentration camp.” Those comments later appeared in an MEK ad in the New York Times, according to josh Rogin …
How Rudolph Giuliani, Possible Cabinet Pick, Made Millions as Ex-Mayor
Eric Lipton and Russ Buettnernov, New York Times, November 18 2016:… The speeches that have drawn the greatest scrutiny are those he gave from 2012 through last year at events organized by the Mujahedeen Khalq. Mr. Giuliani was paid for “three or four” speeches he delivered to the group, said Robert G. Torricelli, a former senator from New Jersey who served as a lawyer for the M.E.K., as the …
John Bolton, Top Contender For Secretary Of State, Calls For Regime Change In Iran
Jessica Schulberg, Huffington Post, November 18 2016:… Bolton has attended rallies in support of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian dissident group that the U.S. classified as a terrorist organization until 2012. The obvious disconnect between the worldviews of Trump and Bolton makes it hard to grasp why the president-elect is considering Bolton to be his top diplomat. But lacking any foreign policy …
Why Rudy Giuliani Shouldn’t Be Secretary of State
New York Times, Editorial Board, November 17 2016:… Mr. Giuliani for instance, he was paid to deliver speeches in 2011 and 2012 defending a cultlike Iranian exile group that was on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. In the long list of ridiculous things Mr. Giuliani has said, his remarks about President Obama in February 2015, when the presidential campaign was gearing up, were particularly disgraceful ..
Rudi Giuliani took money from Qatar, Venezuela, Iranian exiles (Mojahedin Khalq, Rajavi cult)
Isaac Arnsdorf, Politico, November 17 2016:… In 2011, an exiled Iranian political party called the Mujahedin e-Khalq, known as the MEK, paid Giuliani to give a speech in Washington calling on the State Department to remove the group from its list of terrorist organizations. The MEK recruited a host of other formal officials to its cause and succeeded in reversing the terrorist designation in 2012. A subsidiary …
Eli Clifton, Lobelog, November 16 2016:… The MEK is known for paying generous sums to former officials who speak at their events. Lee Hamilton, a former chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee who headed the Woodrow Wilson Center for 12 years, told InterPress Service that he was paid “a substantial amount” to appear on an MEK panel in 2011. Giuliani, Bolton, Lopez, and Gingrich have all sung …
Josh Rogin, Washington Post, November 15 2016:… For years, Giuliani has been one of the most prominent American officials to advocate on behalf of the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), a Marxist Iranian opposition group that claims to be the legitimate government of Iran and resembles a cult. A Treasury Department investigation in 2012 examined whether speaking fees paid by several MEK front groups to a long list …
Will Trump Embrace the Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, NCRI, Rajavi cult)
Michael Rubin, Community Magazine, November 15 2016:… If the goal of the Trump administration is to contain, weaken, and roll back the influence of the Islamic Republic, then outreach to the MKO is the worst possible move because it would rally Iranians around the flag and strengthen the current regime. The simple fact is this: if there is any consensus within Iran, it is that the MKO is the only thing worse than …
EU-Iran Relations in the Trump Era (Rudi Giuliani, Newt Gingrich and John Bolton)
Eldar Mamedov, Lobelog, November 13 2016:… New Gingrich, John Bolton, and Rudy Giuliani, are slated for top jobs in the Trump administration, including the crucial secretary-of-state job. All three have deep tieswith the Iranian dissident cult MEK, on the US terror list until 2012, bitterly opposed to the current Iranian government and advocating regime change in Iran. Although the Saudis …
Land Destroyer, November 13 2016:… Lobbying for MEK terrorists alongside Bolton was former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich. They and other fixtures of American Neo-Conservatism backed MEK along with the Royal Saudi Family, according to the US State Department’s own Voice of America (VOA) media platform. VOA’s article, “Saudi Backing of Iranian Exile Group Inflames …
Massoud Khodabandeh, Huffington Post, November 12 2016:… In particular, Rudi Giuliani, John Bolton and Newt Gingrich. Putting aside their weak personalities as well as their individual neoconservative agendas, the common thread which links these names together is their decade long support for the Mojahedin Khalq terrorist organisation (also known as Saddam’s Private Army or Rajavi cult). It is certain that …
Arash Azizi, Global voice, Nobember 12 2016:… John Bolton called for a military attack on Iran and “vigorous American support” for MEK “aimed at regime change in Tehran”. Last summer, Gingrich spoke at MEK’s rally in Paris alongside Turki bin Faisal, the former head of Saudi intelligence. Gingrich went as far as to solemnly bow down to MEK’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, calling her by her favored title …
Eli Clifton, Lobelog, November 16 2016:… The MEK is known for paying generous sums to former officials who speak at their events. Lee Hamilton, a former chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee who headed the Woodrow Wilson Center for 12 years, told InterPress Service that he was paid “a substantial amount” to appear on an MEK panel in 2011. Giuliani, Bolton, Lopez, and Gingrich have all sung …