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On July 19, 2013 Greek shipping magnate
Victor Restis
sued the U.S.
based nonprofit American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran Inc.
(PDF) which is more popularly known as United
Against Nuclear Iran. UANI was
incorporated in 2008 and is managed and advised by former U.S. and
foreign government officials. UANI's advisory
board includes former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan, long
time Israel lobbyist
and U.S. negotiator Dennis Ross, Senator Joseph Lieberman,
and Frances Townsend the former homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush
.
UANI
raises between $1.3 and $1.7 million a year in tax-exempt donations.
Like all U.S. nonprofit organizations, the group is not required to reveal
the names of its donors in
annual public filings to the IRS. The group lobbies Congress and
drafts legislation aimed at thwarting a program no
credible intelligence
agency including the CIA claims even exists—an
Iranian program to build nuclear weapons. UANI obtains
information about companies it suspects are doing business with Iran
in contraventions of economic sanctions and
issues news releases, letters, Facebook posting
and blurbs through its twitter feed
as "private sanctions campaigns" designed
to pressure a targeted company to cease and desist. UANI, according to
Restis court filings, acts
as a judge, jury and executioner demanding
"the targeted company or individual sign a sworn statement under the
penalty of perjury refuting whatever charges UANI has made; submit
to an examination of the business UANI has targeted by an auditor on its
referral list; and subject itself to an audit and review by an
'independent' counsel.'"
UANI's charges that
Restis is a "front-man" for Iran are thinly
based on UANI's
possession of a proposal letter
for Restis to meet Iranian officials in Greece and a second "consultancy engagement agreement letter." UANI has refused to
publicly release to the public either of the two letters which Restis
claims are crude forgeries. On July 3, 2013 lawyers for Restis issued
their own "cease and desist" letter to UANI managers
which triggered more UANI
accusations and adverse publicity, scuttling a
planned initial public offering and other large business deals.
Restis
has received many death threats as a result of UANI's unrelenting
campaign, being called "an evil, greasy, greedy bastard," a "Greek
fuck," "animal," "crook" and "Christian pig." Restis is Jewish
and claims he supports Israel and is opposed to Iran ever developing
nuclear weapons. Visitor comments on UANI's
Facebook page urge "hang him," "just shoot him" and
"lock and load torpedoes." Mr. Restis was approached by
Rami Ungar, an Israeli
shipping executive with no visible
public connection to UANI according to court filings. Restis
claims Ungar was a fixer who mysteriously knew
all the details about the
UANI situation. Ungar claimed that on behalf of the group’s
supporters he was “authorized to try to resolve the issues.”
Restis is having none of it. In an April
letter to the presiding judge, the Restis
legal team claimed they uncovered information that
UANI “is being funded by foreign interests”
that
like Ungar, were presumably also from Israel. Restis filed court
documents to compel not only Rami Ungar's sworn
testimony but also that of UANI advisor Meir Dagan, the Israeli former Mossad intelligence chief. Restis claims it
was Mossad that served as the conduit between the source and UANI.
UANI's savior appears to have
finally arrived—and it is the same one that in 2009
saved two AIPAC officials from suffering the
public ordeal of a 1917
Espionage Act prosecution after using classified U.S. national defense
information to try to
precipitate U.S. attacks on Iran—the
Obama Department of Justice.
Presumably at the invitation of UANI, the U.S. Justice Department became
"ex parte" to the case on March 10, 2014 after UANI lost a series of
key battles to release sensitive
donor and internal operational information. The Justice
Department claims it is reviewing whether
"certain information at issue in discovery is properly protected from
disclosure pursuant to the law enforcement privilege"
and has prohibited Restis from obtaining UANI
files through a series of stays granted by the judge. On July 31, 2013
DOJ asked presiding judge Edgardo Ramos to extend yet
another a stay on any discovery of UANI's secret files pending
"review of a possible privilege assertion by the Government" until
September, 2014.
According to
reporter Matt Apuzzo, Judge Ramos finds the government involvement
"very curious." Apuzzo subtly poses the question of why the Obama
administration Justice Department is not indicting UANI under its zero
tolerance policy wielded against whistle-blowers and journalists if UANI
in fact possesses classified information. However the Justice Department
intervention is no surprise to those who have
watched Israel lobbying organizations
twist and turn their way out of
public accountability before
warranted civil and criminal
accountability
for decades.
The Justice Department has observably
developed a soft spot for protecting
information wielded on behalf of Israel and its many U.S.
lobbyists. DOJ has recently issued a blanket
prohibition on the FBI from releasing any counterintelligence
information about Mossad operations in the United States
under the Freedom of Information Act. DOJ has protected from
release the FBI investigation into another set of
sloppy fake letters, the "Niger Forgeries" that were used
to justify the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
It has quashed release of FBI wiretaps of AIPAC lobbyist
conversations with Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler that
led to 2005 Espionage Act indictments,
among many, many others.
Restis claims his shipping businesses have lost billions of dollars
under UANI's withering public relations assault.
But
even without the unwarranted intervention of the Justice Department,
Restis is unlikely to ever
recover any damages. In a fatal error on March 7,
2014 Restis retained elite Washington laywer
Abbe David Lowell as his lead counsel. It was
Lowell who successfully defended AIPAC's Steve
Rosen and Keith Weismann from having to face an Espionage Act
prosecution in court as damning evidence
remained bottled up and out of public purview and
implicated Israeli embassy
officials hastily left the United States. Lowell is unlikely to let the tip of the Israel lobby's
nonprofit sanctions spear against Iran be sued out of existence
by an angry slandered
Greek no matter how compelling the evidence or
potential damage award. |
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