In 1996, Bill Clinton’s White House directed a politically motivated Internal Revenue Service audit against me and my news organization.
The charge, ironically, was that I was using a non-profit organization to report unflattering news stories about the president of the United States in an election year.
After many months and great cost, the IRS gave me a clean bill of health. The First Amendment ruled the day. But the irony of this investigation is best illustrated in the findings of a new, independent probe of Clinton’s support of a very political non-profit organization – one used specifically to affect the election results of a foreign country.
Whistleblower Scott Marks of Orlando, Fla., recently concluded an investigation into the use of American charitable dollars to impact Israel’s 1999 elections.
“This is in violation of many U.S. federal laws, as well as is just plain reprehensible,” Marks concludes in a request for injunction he has filed with the IRS and FBI.
Marks documents what many of us have long suspected – that Bill and Hillary Clinton and other top U.S. political operatives laundered money for Ehud Barak’s campaign to become prime minister of Israel through Americans for Peace Now, a 501(c)3 tax-deductible “educational” charity strictly limited from such activity.
The Federal Election Campaign Act prohibits both for-profit and non-profit organizations from engaging in campaigns for political candidates. Both federal tax law and regulations prohibit non-profit organizations from engaging in political activity that supports a candidate for public office.
Nevertheless, that’s just what Americans for Peace Now did – with the fund-raising assistance of the president and first lady.
While Americans for Peace Now claims to be “educational” in nature, it actually serves as a front for the activities of the Israeli Peace Now movement. The American support group admits as much in its official charter.
Peace Now is hardly a group in the mainstream of Israeli politics. It’s an extremist organization. The group is most well-known for its denunciation of Jewish “settlements” in supposedly Arab territory. Peace Now organizes rallies throughout Israel that give great aid and comfort to Arab terrorists. Now we learn the group is not really funded by Israelis at all. It’s a virtual creation of American political activists benefiting wrongly from tax-exempt status in the states.
Last month, the Israeli media began reporting on how Americans for Peace Now was a major illegal source of funding for the Barak campaign. At least $100,000 went directly to Barak’s successful campaign, engineered by political consultant James Carville.
“These are not educational activities,” says Marks. “What APN is doing is financially backing political activism in Israel bent on swaying the Israelis to vote for specific political parties and agendas.”
Over the last five years, Marks’ investigation show, at least $3.8 million has been raised by APN and transferred for use by Peace Now in Israel for its overtly political purposes.
Bill Clinton held a major fund-raiser for APN in New York in 1998. Hillary Clinton served as honorary chairman of an APN fund-raiser the same year. Other prominent supporters of APN include: Stanley K. Sheinbaum, former chairman of the American Civil Liberties Foundation of Southern California; Danny Goldberg, chairman and chief executive officer of Artemis Records and publisher of Tikkun magazine; actor Richard Dreyfuss and actor-singer Mandy Patinkin.
The IRS and FBI should take a good, long look at what Marks has discovered. Americans for Peace Now needs to be shut down as a charitable organization. And those who supported its illegal activities need to be held accountable – including Bill and Hillary Clinton.
