Grant F. Smith discusses on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal the need to register AIPAC as an Israeli foreign agent in line with the Department of Justice 1962 order. Former US State Department official Annelle Sheline responds.
Transcript (lightly edited)
Grant Smith: You mentioned AIPAC (the American Israel Foreign Affairs Committee) as a major force, and it is the driver of all of this, its campaign contributions. According to the book “How Israel Made AIPAC,” AIPAC was set up with Israeli money in the 1950s and 1960s. That’s in the Senate record.
The DOJ is going after Russian foreign agents, but until it enforces its own 1962 order that AIPAC register as a foreign agent, nothing is going to change.
Annelle Sheline: I think that’s a great point. I absolutely agree that we need a lot more scrutiny over the level of, the power of the Israel lobby, the extent to which Israeli interests are driving a lot of these decisions that Congress makes, and yeah, just simply to agree that they should be registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.