{"id":8784,"date":"2018-09-26T13:38:12","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T10:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/?p=8784"},"modified":"2021-01-21T19:26:25","modified_gmt":"2021-01-21T15:56:25","slug":"giuliani-has-been-told-to-stop-advocating-for-foreign-interests-but-just-did-it-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/posts\/8784","title":{"rendered":"Giuliani Has Been Told to Stop Advocating for Foreign Interests but Just Did It Anyway"},"content":{"rendered":"

This time Trump\u2019s lawyer suggested there will be a regime change in Iran<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Earlier this month, seven Senate Democrats asked the Justice Department to investigate whether President Trump\u2019s lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, is breaking the law by lobbying for foreign interests without registering as a foreign agent. One of Giuliani\u2019s foreign clients that the senators cited is Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group that the State Department once included on a list of organizations that support terrorism. Giuliani has spoken at the group\u2019s gatherings and the organization routinely cites its ties to the former mayor to boost its credibility. \u201cGiuliani regularly advocates for regime change in Iran, which is one of MEK\u2019s top objectives,\u201d the senators wrote.<\/p>\n

Giuliani showed how seriously he takes such criticism on Saturday. The former New York mayor spoke at a Manhattan event whose organizers include the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is closely linked to MEK. During his remarks he suggested that the United States supports regime change in Iran.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know when we\u2019re going to overthrow them. It could be in a few days, months, a couple of years. But it\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know when we\u2019re going to overthrow them,\u201d Giuliani told the audience. \u201cIt could be in a few days, months, a couple of years. But it\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giuliani also said that sanctions imposed by the Trump Administration after the United States pulled out of a deal in which Iran agreed not to develop nuclear weapons \u201care working\u201d by damaging Iran\u2019s economy. \u201cThese are the conditions that lead to successful revolution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This statement conflicts with official US policy. The State Department says the United States does not support regime change in Iran and announced last week that Giuliani \u201cdoes not speak for the U.S. government on foreign policy.\u201d During an appearance on CNN Sunday, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley also responded to the suggestion by the president\u2019s lawyer. \u201cThe United States is not looking to do a regime change in Iran,\u201d Haley said.<\/p>\n

Giuliani was paid through his \u201cfirm\u201d to deliver the speech, he told The Daily Beast last week. He declined to disclose his fee. Giuliani does not reveal all his clients, but he has recently worked for foreign entities including the government of Qatar, a member of Ukrainian political party that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort admitted he illegally lobbied for, and Turkish officials prosecuted in the United States for circumventing prior US sanctions on Iran.<\/p>\n

Giuliani has previously admitted that he advises Trump on matters other than legal issues. And Giuliani\u2019s critics have expressed skepticism that he steers clear of concerns that are the priorities of his clients in his conversations with Trump or White House aides. \u201cWithout further review, it is impossible to know whether Mr. Giuliani is lobbying U.S. government officials on behalf of his foreign clients,\u201d the Democratic senators wrote this month.<\/p>\n

Giuliani has insisted he does not believe he is required to register with the Justice Department as a foreign agent because he does not directly lobby Trump or the US government. But the Foreign Agents Registration Act has no such limitation. The law says that anyone in the United States working to influence policy on behalf of foreign governments or political parties must register their activities with the Department of Justice. On Saturday, Giuliani appears to have received payment to advocate in the United States for an aggressive US policy towards Iran.<\/p>\n

Dan Friedman, Mother Jones,<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dan Friedman is a reporter in Mother Jones\u2018 DC bureau. Reach him at dfriedman@motherjones.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Giuliani was paid through his \u201cfirm\u201d to deliver the speech, he told The Daily Beast last week. He declined to disclose his fee. Giuliani does not reveal all his clients, but he has recently worked for foreign entities including the government of Qatar, a member of Ukrainian political party that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[642,20],"module":[67],"ctype":[17],"blog":[109],"class_list":["post-8784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mujahedin-khalq-proxy-force","tag-paid-advocacy-for-mko","tag-third-view-mek","module-news","ctype-story","blog-western-bloggers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8784","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=8784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8784"},{"taxonomy":"module","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/module?post=8784"},{"taxonomy":"ctype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctype?post=8784"},{"taxonomy":"blog","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog?post=8784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}