Supporting Terrorists

Meet the Iranian dissident group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK). Born out of Marxist roots, the group has tried for decades to take control of the Iranian government. During this time, it engaged in various terrorist attacks, including ones that killed six Americans.

For these actions and others, the State Department officially includes the group on its list of terrorist organizations. The MEK has in recent years insisted that it no longer engages in terrorism and that it should be de-listed. However, last month there were news reports that Israel may have enlisted the MEK to engage in bombings in Iran, which would indicate that the group has resumed terror.

In its campaign for delisting, the group has enlisted high-profile politicians from both politician parties.

  Republic Report

The list of high American politicos receiving big pay for promotion from the MEK includes:

Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont, a 2004 Democratic Party presidential primary contender, and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Lee Hamilton, former Democratic congressman and a co-chair of the National Security Preparedness Group (NSPG) at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Porter Goss, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Patrick Kennedy, former Democratic Party congressman.

Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and 2008 Republican presidential contender.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D).

Apparently, Rendell is currently under investigation for payments received. Why not the others and many more like them?

It is possible for Rendell, Dean, Giuliani and others to avoid liability if they are receiving payments from individuals sympathetic to the MEK but who are not formally part of it.

I don't see why.

In June, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 6-3 ruling in the case of Holder v. Humanitarian Law. In that case, the Court upheld the Obama DOJ’s very broad interpretation of the statute that criminalizes the providing of “material support” to groups formally designated by the State Department as Terrorist organizations. The five-judge conservative bloc (along with Justice Stevens) held that pure political speech could be permissibly criminalized as “material support for Terrorism” consistent with the First Amendment if the “advocacy [is] performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization” (emphasis added). In other words, pure political advocacy in support of a designated Terrorist group could be prosecuted as a felony — punishable with 15 years in prison — if the advocacy is coordinated with that group.

This ruling was one of the most severe erosions of free speech rights in decades because, as Justice Breyer (joined by Ginsberg and Sotomayor) pointed out in dissent, “all the activities” at issue, which the DOJ’s interpretation would criminalize, “involve the communication and advocacy of political ideas and lawful means of achieving political ends.”

[...]

Whatever one’s views are on this ruling, it is now binding law. To advocate on behalf of a designated Terrorist group constitutes the felony of “providing material support” if that advocacy is coordinated with the group.

  

So perhaps if it is not coordinated with the terrorist group...

In August of last year, The Christian Science Monitor‘s Scott Peterson published a detailed exposé about “a high-powered array of former top American officials” who have received “tens of thousands of dollars” from a designated Terrorist organization – the Iranian dissident group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) — and then met with its leaders, attended its meetings, and/or publicly advocated on its behalf. That group includes Rudy Giuliani, Howard Dean, Michael Mukasey, Ed Rendell, Andy Card, Lee Hamilton, Tom Ridge, Bill Richardson, Wesley Clark, Michael Hayden, John Bolton, Louis Freeh — and Fran Townsend.

[...]

As but one example, Rendell, the former Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania and current MSNBC contributor, was paid $20,000 for a 10- minute speech before a MEK gathering, and has been a stalwart advocate of the group ever since.

Even for official Washington, where elite crimes are tolerated as a matter of course, this level of what appears to be overt criminality — taking large amounts of money from a designated Terrorist group, appearing before its meetings, meeting with its leaders, then advocating on its behalf — is too much to completely overlook.

[...]

What’s infuriating is that there are large numbers of people — almost always Muslims — who have been prosecuted and are now in prison for providing “material support” to Terrorist groups for doing far less than Fran Townsend and her fellow cast of bipartisan ex-officials have done with and on behalf of MEK. In fact, the U.S. Government has been (under the administration in which Townsend worked) and still is (under the administration Rendell supports) continuously prosecuting Muslims for providing “material support” for Terrorist groups based on their pure speech.

  Glenn Greenwald

....but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.