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Antiques • Classics • Custom & Sports Cars
AIPAC Cleared Of
Charges By FEC
JAMES D. BESSER
Washington Correspondent
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52
FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 1991
t
may have been old news
"inside the Beltway," but
it was still good news for
the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
— and a stinging defeat for
Arab-American groups that
have long sought to limit the
long reach of the pro-Israel
group.
Recently, the Federal
Election Commission an-
nounced what Jewish ac-
tivists have known for many
months — that the
longstanding complaint
against AIPAC, the linchpin
of the pro-Israel community,
had been rejected by the
agency.
Curiously, some of the
Arab-American groups that
had supported the January,
1989 complaint appeared to
have lost interest in the ac-
tion.
"We don't know anything
about it," said the spokes-
man for one major Arab-
American group. "Frankly,
we thought the whole thing
was resolved a year ago."
In fact, the FEC made its
decision late in 1989, but did
not announce the ruling be-
cause the agency had not
resolved one final issue.
But pro-Israel groups have
long been aware that AIPAC
had been absolved of the
most serious charge — that
it coordinates dozens of pro-
Israel political action corn-
mittees in funding House
and Senate campaigns.
AIPAC is a registered
lobbying organization, and
is forbidden from donating
money to political cam-
paigns — or directing how
other organizations should
distribute their money in the
political realm.
PACs, in turn, are not
allowed to coordinate their
contributions.
But the line between collu-
sion and a simple conjunc-
tion of interests is an
extraordinarily obscure one.
And this, more than
anything else, may have
doomed the Arab complaint
from the outset.
The January 1989 com-
plaint alleged that AIPAC
violated election laws by co-
ordinating donations from
some - 27 pro-Israel- PACs.
The charges were made by a
group of seven former
government officials led by
Richard Curtis, a former of-
ficial of the U.S. Information
Agency and a founder of the
American Educational
Trust, a group that takes
strong pro-Arab positions.
The complaint alleged con-
siderable membership
overlap between AIPAC's
leadership and the pro-Israel
PACs. The result, according
to the complaint, is a kind of
de facto collusion that
violates the spirit, if not the
letter of election laws.
But this overlap is a
perfectly natural conse-
quence of the limited size
and narrow focus of the pro-
Israel community, AIPAC
supporters contended — an
argument that the FEC ac-
cepted.
There were also charges
that AIPAC coordinates po-
The line between
collusion and a
simple conjunction
of interests is an
extraordinarily
obscure one.
litical giving by making its
candidate preferences clear
to pro-Israel PACs.
The complaint included a
1986 memorandum from
AIPAC's political director,
suggesting that an AIPAC
employee ask PACs to make
donations in several par-
ticularly critical races.
It is well known that
AIPAC, as a registered
lobbying organization, pro-
vides information about the
positions of current legis-
lators to members — infor-
mation that can also be used
by the funding organizations
to make their decisions
about where to spend their
money.
"This guidance is very
specific, covering which can-
didates 'unfriendly to our
issue,' meaning Israel, are
vulnerable and which can-
didates 'friendly to our issue'
need help," Mr. Curtis said
in his statement to the FEC.
But this informational
function, AIPAC contends, is
an inherent part of the
lobbying process.
Again, the EEC agreed.
Former Rep. Paul Findley
(R-I11.), who blamed AIPAC
for his failure to win a 1982
re-election bid, was one of
the seven former govern-
ment officials who brought
the charges against AIPAC
to the FEC. He called the
FEC ruling "a miscarriage
of justice." 0