A campaign to unseat Netanyahu, reportedly funded by the Obama Administration, is currently under investigation.
In the wake of an internal U.S. government report that the State Department donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a campaign to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the 2015 Israeli elections, Congress on Friday launched a wide-ranging investigation, according to information obtained by Washington Free Beacon.
In what could become another email scandal, Obama administration officials reportedly deleted emails from State Department accounts containing information about its relationship with OneVoice, the non-profit group that led the anti-Netanyahu campaign. OneVoice, in fact, has been under congressional investigation since 2015, when it was suspected of funneling money obtained in U.S. grants to interfere in the Israeli elections. Such activity is prohibited under U.S. tax law.
Following a report on an earlier investigation into the matter, State Department spokesman John Kirby said that there was “no evidence that OneVoice spent State Department grant funds to influence the Israeli election.”
According to a readout of the latest probe, Washington Free Beacon reports, a group of nine leading lawmakers are now formally petitioning the State Department to provide answers concerning the spending of American taxpayer dollars on an organization working against the elected leader of America’s closest Middle East ally.
“State Department officials failed to properly vet the OneVoice grant proposal because they failed to properly conduct an analysis of risks in the pre-award phase,” the senators wrote in a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry. “Unfortunately, it seems that inconsistency and apathy toward oversight of such grants at the State Department is not new. Our aid dollars should be going toward solving real problems, not contributing to the destabilization of allied governments.”
The lawmakers also are seeking to determine what “disciplinary action” is being taken against U.S. officials who knew about the illegal activity to unseat Netanyahu but failed to take action to report this behavior.
By: United with Israel Staff
(With files from Washington Free Beacon)