Iranian American groups have launched an expensive campaign to have the People’s Mujahedin Organization removed from the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.<\/p>\n
Two groups have hired Washington lobbyists to push a House bill calling for the change.<\/p>\n
The Iranian American Community of Northern California has paid Akin Gump $100,000 in the past two months. Former congressmen Vic Fazio and Bill Paxon are among the Akin Gump advisers working on the campaign.<\/p>\n
Another group, Iranian-American Community of North Texas, hired diGenova & Toensing in February. The lobby shop has been paid $100,000 this year. <\/p>\n
The State Department describes Mujahedin, also known as Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), as “the largest and most active armed Iranian dissident group,” with a history of anti-western activity.<\/p>\n
The House bill, sponsored by Republican Ted Poe of Texas, argues that members of the organization have ceased all military operations and reject terrorism.<\/p>\n
The Financial Times reports that groups supporting the legislation have paid millions of dollars to former government officials to speak at their events.<\/p>\n
Among those speaking on behalf of the groups, according to the FT, are Howard Dean, Rudy Giuliani, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton; former national security adviser Jim Jones; retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, former homeland security secretary Tom Ridge; former congressman Lee Hamilton; and former Attorney Gen. Michael Mukasey.<\/p>\n
By Laurie Bennett – Muckety.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Iranian American Community of Northern California has paid Akin Gump $100,000 in the past two months. Former congressmen Vic Fazio and Bill Paxon are among the Akin Gump advisers working on the campaign.Another group, Iranian-American Community of North Texas, hired diGenova & Toensing in February. The lobby shop has been paid $100,000 this year.The State Department describes Mujahedin\/MEK\/MKO\/PMOI as …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":-1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[112,85,642,20],"module":[81],"ctype":[17],"blog":[109],"class_list":["post-3812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mujahedin-khalq-proxy-force","tag-hot-topics","tag-mujahedin-khalq-terrorism","tag-paid-advocacy-for-mko","tag-third-view-mek","module-article","ctype-story","blog-western-bloggers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3812"},{"taxonomy":"module","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/module?post=3812"},{"taxonomy":"ctype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctype?post=3812"},{"taxonomy":"blog","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog?post=3812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}