{"id":9499,"date":"2019-02-16T12:05:19","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T08:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/?p=9499"},"modified":"2021-10-02T11:35:17","modified_gmt":"2021-10-02T08:05:17","slug":"gingrich-considered-registering-as-a-lobbyist-for-iran-regime-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/posts\/9499","title":{"rendered":"Gingrich considered registering as a lobbyist for Iran regime change"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former House speaker sought advice late last year on whether to register as a foreign agent for the Iranian opposition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Newt<\/p>\n

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich attends the”Free Iran 2018 \u2014 the Alternative”event organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an exiled Iranian opposition group, on June 30, 2018, in Villepinte, north of Paris.
\nFormer US House speaker and Donald Trump ally Newt Gingrich asked the Justice Department for advice last year on whether he should register as a foreign agent amid deepening involvement with groups seeking regime change in Iran.
\nGingrich asked the department in mid-September whether he should register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) after an undisclosed person asked him to urge a foreign ambassador in Washington to seek funding from that ambassador\u2019s country to \u201cpromote democracy\u201d in Iran. Gingrich declined to respond to Al-Monitor\u2019s requests for comment and it\u2019s not clear if he ever went through with the person’s request.
\nThe request is spelled out in an Oct. 19 advisory opinion posted to the FARA web site. While Gingrich isn\u2019t named in the redacted document, descriptive details are a perfect match for his Virginia-based Gingrich Productions firm (Al-Monitor was able to independently confirm the request came from Gingrich).
\nIn his letter to the Justice Department, Gingrich also seeks guidance on whether he should register as a lobbyist for a \u201cforeign political party\u201d after making \u201ca number\u201d of \u201cpaid appearances\u201d sponsored by the group\u2019s US affiliate both inside and outside the United States. While the foreign party isn\u2019t named, it appears to be a clear reference to the pro-regime change National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI-US); Gingrich has attended the group’s annual gathering just outside of Paris several times.
\nIn its advisory opinion, the Justice Department says Gingrich, who has not registered as a foreign agent, may need to do so if the US affiliate \u201cis acting in any way on behalf of\u201d the parent party. Interestingly, the NCRI\u2019s US office itself has been registered under FARA as a foreign agent of the NCRI since 2012. A spokesman for the group said it had nothing to do with Gingrich\u2019s potential outreach to the unnamed foreign ambassador.
\nGingrich was an adviser to Trump\u2019s 2016 presidential campaign and remains close to the president, who sought his advice on how to avoid a Democratic \u201cblue wave\u201d ahead of the 2018 mid-term elections. His wife, Callista Gingrich, was tapped as ambassador to the Vatican in May 2017.
\nBut he isn\u2019t the only Washington insider in the president\u2019s orbit who\u2019s close to the Iranian opposition. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani has also long been a fixture at NCRI events. And Al-Monitor first reported that national security adviser John Bolton had disclosed being paid $40,000 for his appearance at the group\u2019s rally in France in 2017 before he joined the government.
\nGingrich\u2019s stepped-up political activity on behalf of the Iranian opposition is particularly noteworthy as the Donald Trump administration sponsors a Middle East conference in Poland this week that was originally billed as an anti-Tehran summit. Giuliani is slated to appear at an NCRI rally in Warsaw coinciding with the summit.
\nJulian Pecquet , Al-Monitor<\/strong>
\nJulian Pecquet is Al-Monitor’s Washington Editor. He was previously Congressional Correspondent from 2014 through May 2017 and most recently before that headed up The Hill’s Global Affairs blog. On Twitter: @JPecquet_ALM, Email: jpecquet@al-monitor.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The former House speaker sought advice late last year on whether to register as a foreign agent for the Iranian opposition. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich attends the”Free…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[90,642,20],"module":[81],"ctype":[17],"blog":[109],"class_list":["post-9499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mujahedin-khalq-proxy-force","tag-mujahedin-warmongers","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\/9499","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=9499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9499"},{"taxonomy":"module","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/module?post=9499"},{"taxonomy":"ctype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctype?post=9499"},{"taxonomy":"blog","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nejatngo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog?post=9499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}