Dem Senators Meet in Secret with Zarif/Iran Last Week

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Did you hear about Senator(s) Whitehouse and Murphy and their secret meeting and delegation?

*** “Murphy is a frequent speaker at the National Iranian American Council, a lobbying group with alleged links to the Islamic Republic of Iran.” He also criticized the killing of Soleimani, the world’s most notorious terrorist, who also killed more than 600 US soldiers in Iraq.

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Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and other Democratic senators had a secret meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference last week, according to a source briefed by the French delegation to the conference. Murphy’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment by press time.

Such a meeting would mean Murphy had done the type of secret coordination with foreign leaders to potentially undermine the U.S. government that he accused Trump officials of doing as they prepared for Trump’s administration. In February 2017, Murphy demanded investigations of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn because he had a phone call with his counterpart-to-be in Russia.

“Any effort to undermine our nation’s foreign policy – even during a transition period – may be illegal and must be taken seriously,” Murphy said in 2017 after anonymous leaks of Flynn’s phone call with Russian ambassador Sergey Kisylak were published. He also strongly criticized the open letter some Republican senators sent Iranian leaders during the Obama administration’s campaign for a nuclear agreement.

However, Murphy has previously defended rogue meetings if they’re done by Democrats such as former Secretary of State John Kerry.

“Unless it was authorized by the president or secretary of state, conducting independent foreign policy sends mixed signals to our adversaries,” said Christian Whiton, former State Department senior advisor in the Trump and George W. Bush administrations. “It seems very unpalatable. If we want to talk to Iranians, they know how to reach us and they don’t need to go through an intermediary.”

A State Department official who spoke on background said that the State Department was not aware of any side meetings with Iranian officials that Murphy was engaged in.

The Munich Security Conference, an annual forum on international security policy, welcomes hundreds of world leaders each February. This year’s conference featured robust debate on the United States’ maximum pressure policy against Iran, China’s handling of the coronavirus and technology concerns, and the European alliance with the United States. Other Democrat senators at the conference included Sens. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. Former Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts also attended.

Both Murphy and Zarif spoke publicly during a two-hour session on Middle East policy, with Murphy and Zarif both fiercely criticizing U.S. policy.

President Donald Trump has reoriented American policy in the Middle East away from President Barack Obama’s friendly posture toward Iran. He departed from Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a nuclear arrangement with the Republic of Iran that was not ratified by the United States Senate.

Trump has exerted instead a “maximum pressure” campaign against the regime, with 12 demands on Iran before a new deal is reached. Those demands include a full account of its nuclear program, ending its proliferation of ballistic missiles, releasing all U.S. citizens held on spurious charges, ending support to terrorist groups, withdrawal of forces in Syria, and cessation of its threatening behavior against its neighbors.

The “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions has devastated the Iranian economy, which is in recession and faces rising inflation. It has made it difficult for Iran to pay foreign fighters engaged in supported terror operations. Iranians have taken to the streets in protest.

Iran recently killed an American contractor in Iraq and the United States killed Iranian general Qassim Suleimani, a top Iranian leader who was responsible for the killing and maiming of thousands of U.S. soldiers. Iran’s retaliatory strike for that killing resulted in no U.S. deaths, but the country did shoot down a Ukrainian passenger plane then lied about it for days.

At the conference, Zarif said official retaliation for the killing of Suleimani had ended, although he suggested independent attacks from others in the country might follow.

Murphy is a frequent speaker at the National Iranian American Council, a lobbying group with alleged links to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Republican Sens. Mike Braun of Indiana, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, and Ted Cruz of Texas recently asked the Department of Justice for potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

They wrote that the influential lobbying group “purports to improve understanding between American and Iranian people but in reality seems to spread propaganda and lobby on behalf of the Iranian government.” Evidence indicates that evidence Zarif himself was involved in founding the group. Hat tip/Federalist

Russia Got Crimea, Working on Ukraine, Belarus Next?

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Primer: The Minsk Agreement has not led to a peace deal. The agreement was first negotiated by a mere telephone call between Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko in 2014. It has a few newer iterations. It was to stop the warring factions between Russia and Ukraine. The whole matter was and is a continued plot for Putin to consolidate his power.

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Belarus, Minsk and Schedrin Maps

The president of Belarus said Friday that Russia insisted on merging the two states during last week’s talks on further integrating the countries’ economies.

“They understand integration as swallowing up Belarus. This isn’t integration. It’s incorporation. I will never go for this,” President Alexander Lukashenko said during a visit to a paper plant in southeastern Belarus.

“I will always fight for our land to remain sovereign and independent. Your first president that you once elected will never be the last,” he added.

Tension has been running high between the neighboring ex-Soviet states for several months now. As negotiations on closer ties stalled, Russia halted oil supplies to Belarus and Lukashenko repeatedly accused the Kremlin of pushing for a merger of the two countries.

Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin sat down last Friday for yet another round of talks in Sochi, but failed to reach an agreement.

Merging with Belarus is seen by many as a strategy for Putin to stay in power well past the legally mandated end of his presidential term in 2024 by becoming the head of a new state.

As Lukashenko has resisted the integration effort, the Kremlin has increased pressure by halting oil supplies to Belarus, which relies on Russia for more than 80% of its energy needs.

Lukashenko has since vowed to find alternative oil suppliers and boasted about warming ties with the West in an apparent bid to win concessions from Russia. So far Belarus has been able to secure a shipment of oil from Norway and is negotiating supplies from Kazakhstan.

Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for more than two decades and is up for re-election this year, doesn’t want to become a governor in a single state with Russia, Minsk-based political analyst Alexander Klaskovsky told The Associated Press.

“The Kremlin has so far failed to scare Minsk by cutting subsidies ahead of the presidential race in Belarus,” Klaskovsky said.

Lukashenko said Friday that talks on closer ties between Russia and Belarus would continue, but only “the questions of integrating economies” would be on the table.

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This effort by Moscow has been going on at least since 2014. Trade and oil is at the core of the issues and Russia is strong arming the leadership of Belarus.

Meet the Group Behind Letter Demanding AG Barr Resign

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Sanctimony at its peak…

AG Barr to testify - Iola Register AG Barr
Let us go back several years shall we? Anyone remember Sandy Berger? He was the cat that went to the National Archives and stole classified documents. At the time he was a national security advisor to President Clinton. He was found guilty and the recommended sentence was no jail time, a $10,000 fine and he would lose his security clearance for three years. His actual sentence was $50,000 fine, 100 hours of community service and two years probation and no loss of his bar license.

We also have so many others like James Comey, James Clapper, illegal criminal immigrants, Bradley Manning, Bowe Bergdahl among so many others including those given clemency like Marc Rich.

*** The letter signed by so many former Department of Justice officials demanding AG Barr resign reads as follows: (the list of signatures are found at the end of the link)

We for sure now have confirmed activist media –> Eight legal analysts for CNN and MSNBC are among the signatories of the letter. This letter/action is coming from the left that does not want people sentenced for misdemeanors nor a whole host of felonies. Which is it people?

DOJ Alumni Statement

We, the undersigned, are alumni of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) who have collectively served both Republican and Democratic administrations. Each of us strongly condemns President Trump’s and Attorney General Barr’s interference in the fair administration of justice.

As former DOJ officials, we each proudly took an oath to support and defend our Constitution and faithfully execute the duties of our offices. The very first of these duties is to apply the law equally to all Americans. This obligation flows directly from the Constitution, and it is embedded in countless rules and laws governing the conduct of DOJ lawyers. The Justice Manual — the DOJ’s rulebook for its lawyers — states that “the rule of law depends on the evenhanded administration of justice”; that the Department’s legal decisions “must be impartial and insulated from political influence”; and that the Department’s prosecutorial powers, in particular, must be “exercised free from partisan consideration.”

All DOJ lawyers are well-versed in these rules, regulations, and constitutional commands. They stand for the proposition that political interference in the conduct of a criminal prosecution is anathema to the Department’s core mission and to its sacred obligation to ensure equal justice under the law.

And yet, President Trump and Attorney General Barr have openly and repeatedly flouted this fundamental principle, most recently in connection with the sentencing of President Trump’s close associate, Roger Stone, who was convicted of serious crimes. The Department has a long-standing practice in which political appointees set broad policies that line prosecutors apply to individual cases. That practice exists to animate the constitutional principles regarding the even-handed application of the law. Although there are times when political leadership appropriately weighs in on individual prosecutions, it is unheard of for the Department’s top leaders to overrule line prosecutors, who are following established policies, in order to give preferential treatment to a close associate of the President, as Attorney General Barr did in the Stone case. It is even more outrageous for the Attorney General to intervene as he did here — after the President publicly condemned the sentencing recommendation that line prosecutors had already filed in court.

Such behavior is a grave threat to the fair administration of justice. In this nation, we are all equal before the law. A person should not be given special treatment in a criminal prosecution because they are a close political ally of the President. Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they are autocracies.

We welcome Attorney General Barr’s belated acknowledgment that the DOJ’s law enforcement decisions must be independent of politics; that it is wrong for the President to interfere in specific enforcement matters, either to punish his opponents or to help his friends; and that the President’s public comments on DOJ matters have gravely damaged the Department’s credibility. But Mr. Barr’s actions in doing the President’s personal bidding unfortunately speak louder than his words. Those actions, and the damage they have done to the Department of Justice’s reputation for integrity and the rule of law, require Mr. Barr to resign. But because we have little expectation he will do so, it falls to the Department’s career officials to take appropriate action to uphold their oaths of office and defend nonpartisan, apolitical justice.

For these reasons, we support and commend the four career prosecutors who upheld their oaths and stood up for the Department’s independence by withdrawing from the Stone case and/or resigning from the Department. Our simple message to them is that we — and millions of other Americans — stand with them. And we call on every DOJ employee to follow their heroic example and be prepared to report future abuses to the Inspector General, the Office of Professional Responsibility, and Congress; to refuse to carry out directives that are inconsistent with their oaths of office; to withdraw from cases that involve such directives or other misconduct; and, if necessary, to resign and report publicly — in a manner consistent with professional ethics — to the American people the reasons for their resignation. We likewise call on the other branches of government to protect from retaliation those employees who uphold their oaths in the face of unlawful directives. The rule of law and the survival of our Republic demand nothing less.

If you are a former DOJ employee and would like to add your name below, click here. Protect Democracy will update this list daily with new signatories.

UN Blacklists Israeli Companies

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Primer:Remember the United States crafted and offered a peace agreement between Israel, Hamas, the Palestinians just a few weeks ago. Reading below, note that ‘united nations’ is hardly what this blacklist encourages.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published on Wednesday a “database” of companies doing business with Israeli settlements. The list includes 112 firms, 94 of them Israeli and the other 18 from six other countries, including the United States.

International Women’s Day: Top Inspirational Women Around ... Michelle Bachelet

The database was generated pursuant to Resolution 31/36, adopted by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on March 24, 2016, which calls upon the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to produce a “database of all business enterprises” engaged in certain settlement-related activities in “the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”

The database, also referred to as a blacklist, is inconsistent with U.S. law and policy. U.S. law, at 19 U.S.C. 4452(b)(4), states that Congress “opposes politically motivated actions that penalize or otherwise limit commercial relations specifically with Israel, such as boycotts of, divestment from, or sanctions against Israel.”

In addition, compliance with the blacklist could be inconsistent with the U.S. anti-boycott statute (50 U.S.C 4842), which has long been used to punish compliance with boycotts (and blacklists) fostered by the Arab League.

Boycotts spurred by the UNHRC and its blacklist would likely also run afoul of some or all of the two dozen U.S. state laws that require divestment from companies that boycott Israel (in some cases specifically defined to include Israeli settlements).

Compliance with a boycott fostered by the UNHRC and its blacklist may also cause U.S. companies to run afoul of the U.S. Treasury Department’s separate antiboycott regulations. The regulations implement the Ribicoff amendment to the Tax Reform Act of 1976. Internal Revenue Code section 999 requires U.S. taxpayers to report whether they (or corporations they control) have participated in or cooperated with boycotts not sanctioned by the U.S. government. According to the Treasury, U.S. persons who participate in such boycotts “may be subject to penalties that reduce their foreign tax credit, the benefits of foreign sales corporations, and the deferral available to U.S. shareholders of controlled foreign corporations.”

The blacklist also lacks a basis in international law. Indeed, international law does not prohibit business in disputed territories. Nor is doing such business inconsistent with the principles of corporate social responsibility (which are non-binding). That is the official view of the United Nations, expressed in its Global Compact document titled “Guidance on Responsible Business in Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas: A Resource for Companies and Investors.”

Finally, the legitimacy of the database is also thrown into doubt by the very makeup of the UNHRC, which includes as members many of the world’s worst human rights violators. Current UNHRC members sitting in judgment of Israel include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, and Venezuela.

There are more than 100 territorial disputes in the world today, including in Crimea, Cyprus, Kashmir, Nagorno-Karabakh, Tibet, and Western Sahara. Yet only the West Bank and East Jerusalem were singled out for such a database. The decision to focus on Israel raises the question of whether the database is really about human rights, or rather about hypocritically bashing Israel.

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The list identified companies listed in the United States, France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Thailand and Britain.

Inclusion on the list had no immediate legal implications for the companies. But the issue is highly sensitive as companies named could be targeted for boycotts or divestment aimed at stepping up international pressure on Israel over its West Bank settlements.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin expressed solidarity with the named businesses, saying, “Boycotting Israeli companies does not advance the cause of peace and does not build confidence between the sides.”

“We call on our friends around the world to speak out against this shameful initiative which reminds of dark periods in our history,” he added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netnayahu said, “Whoever boycotts us will be boycotted. The UN Human Rights Council is a biased body that is devoid of influence. Not for nothing have I already ordered the severing of ties with it. It was also not for nothing that the American administration has taken this step together with us. In recent years, we have promoted laws in most US states, which determine that strong action is to be taken against whoever tries to boycott Israel. Therefore, this body is unimportant. Instead of the organization dealing with human rights, it only tries to disparage Israel. We strongly reject this contemptible effort.”

The head of Israel’s centrist Blue and White party — ex-IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz — tweeted, “A dark day for human rights. The UN high commissioner for human rights has lost touch with reality.”

Hillel Neuer — executive director of the Geneva-based UN Watch NGO — tweeted, “The list has no precedent & turns the UN into Ground Zero for the global anti-Israel boycott campaign.” More here.

 

US Navy Seizes Iran Ship with SAMs on Board

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Our turn eh? Hummm, the same say that the Senate votes to limit the President’s war power measures on declaring war with Iran, this event from last week hits the headlines. By the way, President Trump has never indicated he would go to war with Iran with or without Congressional approval so that whold bi-partisan measure in the Senate was just a formality…gesture.

The Senate passed a war powers resolution Thursday that constrains President Donald Trump’s ability to authorize military strikes against Iran.

The resolution from Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine received bipartisan support. It passed 55–45 with eight Republicans voting with Democrats in favor. However, Trump has signaled he will veto the resolution, and there are not enough votes in Congress to override the veto.

Kaine introduced the resolution in early January after escalating tensions with Iran culminated in an American strike killing Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and Iran responding by firing missiles at two American bases in Iraq. The administration gave Congress a briefing to justify the strike after the fact, which didn’t satisfy Democrats and infuriated two administration allies, Republican Reps. Mike Lee and Rand Paul.

“The nation should not be at war without a vote of Congress,” said Kaine Wednesday. “Even if he chooses to veto it and we can’t override, the will of both bodies and the public they represent, that could be a factor in his decision making.” h/t

Anyway, back to the SAMs…surface to air missiles…

U.S. Warship in Arabian Sea Seizes Suspected Iranian Weapons

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Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy (CG-60) seized a cache of Iranian-made anti-tank missiles and other munitions aboard a dhow in the Arabian Sea over the weekend.

Normandy stopped the dhow while conducting maritime security operations over the weekend, in accordance with international law, according to a statement released Thursday by U.S. Central Command.

The seized weapons include:

  • 150 Dehlavieh anti-tank missiles, which are Iranian-made version of the Russian Kornet anti-tank missiles
  • Three Iranian-made surface-to-air missiles
  • Thermal imaging weapon scopes
  • Components for manned and unmanned aerial and surface vessels

The CENTCOM statement noted that many of the munitions seized over the weekend by Normandy are similar to weapons and components seized in November by the crew of Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Forrest Sherman (DDG-98).

The weapons included 358 surface-to-air missile components and ‘Dehlavieh’ anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM), intended for the Houthis in Yemen, aboard a stateless dhow during a maritime interdiction operation in the U.S. Fifth Fleet area of operations on Feb. 9, 2020. US Navy Photo

The weapons seized by Forrest Sherman were determined to be destined for Houthi rebels fighting in Yemen, according to CENTCOM. Houthi rebels have been fighting Saudi Arabian forces in Yemen for five years. The force has used unmanned aerial and surface vessels to attack Saudi Arabian forces in the past, using equipment that U.S. military experts say comes from Iran.

The shipment of weapons seized over the weekend would violate a United Nations Security Council resolution prohibiting the “direct or indirect supply, sale, or transfer of weapons to the Houthis,” the CENTCOM statement notes.