April, 16 2019, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Angela Bradbery, abradbery@citizen.org, (202) 588-7741
Mike Stankiewicz, mstankiewicz@citizen.org, (202) 588-7779
Better Late Than Never: Following a Public Citizen Petition, the Office of Government Ethics Will Regulate Executive Branch Legal Defense Funds
Statement of Craig Holman, Government Affairs Lobbyist, Public Citizen’s Congress Watch Division
WASHINGTON
Note: Public Citizen on Sept. 15, 2017, petitioned the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) to promulgate rules and procedures for setting up and running legal defense funds by executive branch officials. OGE Director Emory Rounds announced on Monday that the agency will pursue rulemaking on legal defense funds, including addressing the issues raised by Public Citizen, ranging from disclosure requirements to contribution limits and source prohibitions. Comments from the public are due June 14.
Public Citizen applauds the recent announcement for rulemaking, even if it should have been done a while ago. Better late than never.
Legal defense funds for executive branch officials used to be not much of a problem, because very few were ever set up by executive branch officials. But as Public Citizen warned the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), with the tidal wave of ethics and legal scandals washing over the Trump administration, legal defense funds will be created in nearly every agency.
Congress, on the other hand, has long had rules in place for how lawmakers may pay for legal expenses associated with ethics complaints and other legal issues associated with public office. Congress mandates full disclosure of congressional legal defense funds, sets contribution limits to these funds and even restricts lobbyists and foreign principals from donating to these funds.
But no such rules exist for the executive branch. A dozen such funds may be established and in full swing, but without adequate disclosure, no one really knows how many legal defense funds have been created, who is donating to the funds and how the money is being spent. The potential for donors buying favors with officials is enormous in this stealth arena.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
(202) 588-1000LATEST NEWS
Bernie Sanders to Netanyahu: 'It Is Not Antisemitic to Hold You Accountable'
"Please, do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal war policies of your extremist and racist government," said the Vermont senator to Israel's prime minister.
Apr 25, 2024
Jewish U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a scathing statement Thursday pushing back against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's characterization of burgeoning protests on American university campuses as "antisemitic," declaring, "It is not antisemitic to hold you accountable for your actions."
"No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months, your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000—70% of whom are women and children," said Sanders (I-Vt.). "It is not antisemitic to point out that your bombing has completely destroyed more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza, leaving more than one million people homeless—almost half the population."
"Antisemitism is a vile and disgusting form of bigotry that has done unspeakable harm to many millions of people," continued Sanders, who lost family members to the Nazi Holocaust. "But, please, do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal war policies of your extremist and racist government. Do not use antisemitism to deflect attention from the criminal indictment you are facing in the Israeli courts."
No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000 – 70% of whom are women and children.
You will not distract us from this immoral war. pic.twitter.com/oDaiyU4ipD
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 25, 2024
Sanders' statement came a day after Netanyahu
falsely described student protesters speaking out against Israel's catastrophic war on Gaza as "antisemitic mobs" and likened the demonstrations to "what happened in German universities in the 1930s."
"It has to be stopped," Netanyahu said of the campus protests, which have faced violent police crackdowns.
Students at Columbia, Princeton, the City College of New York, the University of Texas at Austin, Northwestern, and other schools nationwide are demanding that the institutions divest from any companies that are participating in or benefiting from Israel's war on Gaza and publicly support an immediate cease-fire.
On Wednesday, hundreds of UT Austin students walked out of their classrooms and marched to the main lawn of the campus before police officers with horses and riot gear
arrived on the scene, arrested dozens, and assaulted some protesters.
"One woman said she saw a large police officer place his entire body weight to detain a young woman protesting," The Texas Tribunereported. "Law enforcement was also seen kneeling on individuals' backs and necks, pulling their hair, and in one case punching a protester in the nose."
Jeremi Suri, a professor of history at UT Austin, toldAl Jazeera that contrary to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's claim, there was "nothing antisemitic" about Wednesday's protests.
"These students were shouting 'free Palestine,' that's all," said Suri. "They were saying nothing that was threatening. And as they were standing and shouting, I witnessed the police—the state police, the campus police, the city police—an army of police almost the size [of] the student group... many were carrying guns, many were carrying rifles, and then, within a few minutes, this group of police stormed into the student crowd and started arresting students."
In his statement Thursday, Sanders emphasized that criticism of Israel's massively destructive assault on Gaza cannot be conflated with antisemitism.
"It is not antisemitic to note that your government has obliterated Gaza’s civilian infrastructure—electricity, water, and sewage," said Sanders, who earlier this week voted against a foreign aid package that included $17 billion in additional U.S. military assistance for Israel.
"It is not antisemitic to realize that your government has annihilated Gaza's healthcare system, knocking 26 hospitals out of service and killing more than 400 healthcare workers," he continued. "It is not antisemitic to condemn your government's destruction of all of Gaza’s 12 universities and 56 of its schools, with hundreds more damaged, leaving 625,000 students with no education."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Holocaust Survivor Tells Student Anti-Genocide Protesters: 'Just Keep Doing It'
"There is a question of historical responsibility towards injustice, genocide, and fascism," said Stephen Kapos. "If you are indifferent, if you do not take a stand, you acquire a degree of guilt."
Apr 25, 2024
A Holocaust survivor opposed to Israel's war on Gaza on Wednesday told U.S. student protesters they're on the right side of history, and that the global wave of demonstrations against the slaughter and starvation of Palestinians will soon force Western leaders to face up to their complicity in genocide.
Stephen Kapos, 86, was 7 years old in 1944 when he was separated from his family during the Nazi extermination of Jews in his native Hungary. Most of his family was murdered in the Holocaust but Kapos survived and moved to the United Kingdom after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary.
Kapos is part of a small group of Shoah survivors and their descendants who "demonstrate disagreement with the use of the Holocaust experience as a cover by the Zionists and the state of Israel." They attend protests wearing signs around their necks reading, "This Holocaust Survivor Says Stop the Genocide in Gaza!"
"As a Holocaust survivor, my message to the brave student protesters in America is just keep doing it. Don't give up," Kapos said in video published by Double Down News. "We are doing exactly the same, and in the long term we are going to prevail."
Holocaust Survivor Message to US Campus Protesters:
This survivor of the Holocaust is against Genocide in Gaza & conflating Jewishness with Zionism, which does nothing but increase antisemitism.
Your protests are so persistent, large and global that eventually the Western… pic.twitter.com/IDCH0NTO6m
— Double Down News (@DoubleDownNews) April 24, 2024
Kapos' comments came amid a growing wave of pro-Palestine student protests—many of them Jewish-led—on dozens of U.S. university and college campuses in response to Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice in January found "plausibly" genocidal and which many Israeli and international experts say is undoubtedly a genocide.
According to Gazan and international officials, more than 122,000 Palestinians have been killed or maimed during 202 days of near-relentless Israeli attacks. This figure includes around 11,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings. Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced. Starvation and dehydration caused by Israel's bombardment and blockade of Gaza are killing children and other vulnerable people.
Instead of condemning Israeli leaders, the Biden administration has lavished them with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid while providing diplomatic cover for Israeli crimes and blocking recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.
As the suffering in Gaza continues, U.S. students have set up encampments or staged other forms of protest, some of which have been brutally repressed by police—who have also attacked and arrested journalists and bystanders.
On Wednesday, far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implored U.S. authorities to crack down even harder on the students, whom he called an "antisemitic mob."
Highlighting video footage of Netanyahu comparing the student protests to what happened at German universities during the rise of Nazism, Kapos said that "the way that the Israeli government is using the memory of the Holocaust in order to justify what they're doing to the Gazans is a complete insult to the memory of the Holocaust."
He said he is also protesting "the conflating of Jewishness with Zionism, which is what the Israeli state is trying to do, which does nothing but increase antisemitism."
Kapos predicted that "today's marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it, and I think we are not far from that."
"Today's marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it."
"There is a question of historical responsibility towards injustice, genocide, and fascism," Kapos asserted. "If you are indifferent, if you do not take a stand, you acquire a degree of guilt without any doubt and I think it is imperative to assert opposition and even some degree of disadvantage and risk if you want to be guilt-free when history judges what's happening."
Kapos and his comrades are part of a long history of Holocaust survivors speaking out against Israeli crimes against Palestinians.
Long before today's growing acknowledgment that Israel is an apartheid state, the late Suzanne Weiss—whose parents were murdered in Nazi-occupied France—said in 2010 that "the Palestinians are victims of ethnic cleansing and apartheid" and that "the Israeli government's actions toward the Palestinians awaken horrific memories of my family's experiences under Hitlerism."
Hajo Meyer, who survived 10 months in the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, argued during his lifetime that "what is happening to the Palestinians every day under the occupation" was "almost identical" to "what was done to the German Jews before the 'Final Solution,'" and that instead of making Jews safer, Israeli policies and practices were stoking the flames of antisemitism.
Holocaust survivors who stand up for Palestinian rights have been condemned by critics as "antisemites" and "self-hating Jews" who, in Meyer's case, allegedly abused his status as a Holocaust survivor.
Kapos, who has experienced such slurs, is undaunted and says he has no plans to stop protesting. During a recent rally in London he vowed, "I'll keep doing it as long as the bombing and apartheid and the injustice is going on."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'A Moral Crisis': Wars Fuel Spike in Global Hunger as Arms Giants Rake in Record Profits
"It is unforgivable that over 281 million people are suffering acute hunger while the world's richest continue to make extraordinary profits."
Apr 25, 2024
A report published Wednesday found that the number of people around the world suffering acute hunger surged to 282 million last year amid the intensifying climate crisis and military conflicts—including Israel's assault on Gaza—that have further enriched weapons manufacturers.
The Global Report on Food Crises estimates that 281.6 million people in 59 countries faced high levels of acute food insecurity in 2023, an increase of 24 million compared to the previous year.
2023 marked the fifth consecutive year that global hunger has worsened, according to the new report, which found that Gazans account for 80% of the people facing imminent famine globally. Dozens of people in the Gaza Strip, mostly children, have starved to death in recent weeks as Israel continues to bomb the territory and impede the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian aid.
The report, a collaborative project of more than a dozen organizations including the World Food Program (WFP), said military conflict was the "primary driver affecting 20 countries with nearly 135 million people in acute food insecurity—almost half of the global number."
"The Sudan faced the largest deterioration due to conflict, with 8.6 million more people facing high levels of acute food insecurity as compared with 2022," the report found.
Extreme weather events fueled by the continued burning of oil, gas, and coal "were the primary driversin 18 countries where over 77 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity, up from 12 countries with 57 million people in 2022," the document added.
"When we talk about acute food insecurity, we are talking about hunger so severe that it poses an immediate threat to people's livelihoods and lives," said Dominique Burgeon, director of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Liaison Office in Geneva. "This is hunger that threatens to slide into famine and cause widespread death."
Emily Farr, global food and economic security lead at Oxfam International, said in response to the new figures that "the global hunger crisis is fundamentally a moral crisis."
"It is unforgivable that over 281 million people are suffering acute hunger while the world's richest continue to make extraordinary profits, including the same aerospace and defense corporations helping to fuel conflict, the main driver of hunger," said Farr. "The top 100 arms companies have hoarded nearly $600 billion in revenues just in 2022—enough to cover the U.N. global humanitarian appeal almost 13 times."
"States must prioritize justice and peace over politics, and radically reform global peace and security bodies to protect international law rather than perpetuate impunity."
Israel's war on Gaza and Russia's assault on Ukraine have been a major boon for the global weapons industry, propelling arms makers to record profits as governments ramp up orders for tanks, howitzers, missiles, and other lethal military equipment.
"This is a form of corporate welfare not only for the largest weapons manufacturers, like Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, and General Dynamics, which have seen their stock prices skyrocket, but also for companies that are not typically seen as part of the weapons industry, such as Caterpillar, Ford, and Toyota," the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) noted in a recent analysis.
Late last year, AFSC created an online database that allows users to see which companies are profiting from Israel's military assault on the Gaza Strip.
WFP's global hunger report was released on the same day U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a measure containing tens of billions of dollars in additional military assistance for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan.
Reutersreported Thursday that Lockheed Martin and RTX—major arms manufacturers—"stand to profit" from the aid package's "$95 billion of mostly new weapons funding."
"The United States needs to buy and restock 'Tomahawk, AMRAAM, Coyote, SM-6,' RTX's CFO Neil Mitchill told Reuters in an interview, listing a long-range cruise missile, an air-to-air missile, a small drone, and a ground-based missile that can be used for air defense," the outlet noted. "In most cases, the U.S. has either sent the munitions to Ukraine or used them to defend Red Sea shipping lanes."
Farr said Wednesday that "we cannot drastically change course without a global awakening."
"States must prioritize justice and peace over politics, and radically reform global peace and security bodies to protect international law rather than perpetuate impunity," said Farr. "Governments must also rehaul our global food system, tax the rich to invest in the public majority—the small farmers, workers, and vulnerable communities—and support green economies."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular