Our Government Is Awash With Foreign Citizens
By Chuck Baldwin
Most Americans would be shocked if they knew how many foreign citizens are in our federal government—and at what levels. They don’t know because the mainstream media (or the conservative media, for that matter) almost never talks about it. It is one of the biggest secrets in Washington, D.C.
Back in 2015, Michael Hager wrote a very important missive that appeared in The Hill. Hager said:
The Biblical injunction that “No one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24) doesn’t apply to nations. Almost half of the world’s countries, including the U.S., recognize dual citizenship—even when they don’t encourage it for the complicated legal issues it often raises.
For example, one who obeys a requirement to give allegiance to a country or votes in a foreign election may be regarded as having renounced citizenship in the other country. What happens when the legal claims of one country conflict with those of the second country? Which of the two countries has an obligation to assist a dual national in distress?
Until the Supreme Court decided otherwise in the 1967 case of Afroyim v. Rusk, a U.S. citizen who voted in a political election in a foreign state would forfeit his or her U.S. citizenship. From that point on, dual citizens have maintained their right to vote and hold public office without penalty.
Anyone can become a dual citizen, even members of Congress, high court judges and top officials of the executive branch. There’s no law or regulation against it. Nor are they required to disclose such dual citizenship.
So what’s the problem?
Dual citizenship in the United States poses a hitherto unappreciated issue for policy-level members of the legislative, executive and judicial branches. The divided national loyalties of dual citizens can create real or apparent conflicts of interest when such legislators, judges or senior officials make or speak out on policies that relate to their second country.
The potential damage to our democracy is the greater when such potential conflicts of interest are concealed in undisclosed dual citizenship.The lack of transparency regarding citizenship erodes trust in government, raising credibility doubts where there should be none, and allowing some apparent conflicts of interest to continue undetected.
When a senator, representative or senior U.S. official speaks out, submits bills or determines policy on an issue of importance to a foreign country of which that member or official (or judge) has the tie of citizenship, their constituents and the U.S. public at large should at least be able to assess whether such views or actions are influenced by the divided loyalty.
Since they don’t involve national loyalty, religion and ethnicity seldom raise conflict issues. Moreover, they are generally matters of public record.
By contrast, dual citizenship creates conflict of interest through divided loyalties. Thus it would seem reasonable to require that dual citizen members of Congress, the judiciary and the executive be required to renounce citizenship in another country as a condition of public service.
Yet the media and government watchdog organizations have largely ignored the potential conflict of interest inherent in dual citizenship. Why the neglect of this issue? Shouldn’t members of Congress (and federal judges and executive branch officials) at least be required to disclose their citizenship in another country?
Even if our legal system continues to allow dual citizens to serve in high positions of the U.S. government, it should require them to recuse themselves from participating in decisions or policy debates that relate to their second country.
As a first step, the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress should begin to include citizenship (along with the current listings of party breakdown, age, occupations, education, Congressional service, religion, gender, ethnicity and military service) in its published profiles of each new Congress.
Americans can then decide whether our legislators (and possibly federal judges and senior government officials as well) should be required to renounce their citizenship in another country as a condition of public service.
The U.S. Department of State — Bureau Of Consular Affairs, “Dual Nationality,” official web page says:
Dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country. They are required to obey the laws of both countries, and either country has the right to enforce its laws. It is important to note the problems attendant to dual nationality. Claims of other countries upon U.S. dual-nationals often place them in situations where their obligations to one country are in conflict with the laws of the other.
Yet, there are probably hundreds (we really don’t know the true number, because as Hager notes, they are not required by law to declare their foreign citizenship) of foreign citizens serving in our federal government. And will you be shocked to learn that almost all of them—if not ALL of them—are citizens of ONE foreign country? Take a wild guess which country that is. You’re right. ISRAEL.
In my research for this column (which was not exhaustive), I found over 100 members of the U.S. government who are known to be dual U.S.-Israeli citizens. Here is a short sample list (compiled from public documents):
Michael Chertoff
He was the 2nd United States Secretary of Homeland Security (2005 – 2009), serving under G.W. Bush and Barack Obama. He was co-author of the USA PATRIOT Act, Federal Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (2003 – 2005) and United States Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division (2001 – 2003).
Chertoff’s father was Rabbi Gershon Baruch Chertoff (a Talmud scholar and the former leader of the Congregation B’nai Israel in Elizabeth, New Jersey). His mother was Livia Chertoff (née Eisen), an Israeli citizen who worked for the Mossad.
Researcher and investigative journalist Christopher Bollyn (author of the blockbuster book The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East) writes this about Chertoff:
As Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division of the Dept. of Justice, Chertoff personally supervised and controlled the entire FBI non-investigation of 9-11. Chertoff is the responsible person for the obstruction of justice and blocking access to the evidence since September 11, 2001.
Chertoff is the co-author, along with Viet Dinh, of the USA PATRIOT Act, signed into law on October 26, 2001. As head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, he advised the Central Intelligence Agency on the legality of torture techniques in coercive interrogation sessions.
From 2001 to 2003, he headed the criminal division of the Department of Justice, leading the prosecution against terrorist suspect Zacarias Moussaoui. In this role, Chertoff was central in creating the 9-11 myth by providing the list of the 19 Arab suspects and supervising the FBI’s confiscation of evidence and the non-investigation of 9-11.
Michael Mukasey
He served as the 81st Attorney General of the United States (2007 – 2009) under President G.W. Bush; he was the 2nd Jewish U.S. Attorney General. He served for 18 years as a judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (1987 – 2006), 6 of those years as Chief Judge (2000 – 2006).
Mukasey was the judge in the litigation between developer Larry Silverstein and several insurance companies arising from the destruction of the World Trade Center. He was a major proponent of G.W. Bush’s efforts to expand executive powers in the name of national security. He was especially outspoken in his support for the USA Patriot Act.
Richard Perle
Perle served as the 1st Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs under President Ronald Reagan. He began his political career as a senior staff member to Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson on the Senate Armed Services Committee in the 1970s. He served on the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee from 1987 to 2004 (chairman 2001 – 2003) under the Bush Administration before resigning due to conflicts of interest.
A very likely Israeli government agent, Perle was expelled from Senator Jackson’s office in the 1970’s after the National Security Agency (NSA) caught him passing highly-classified (National Security) documents to the Israeli Embassy.
He has been involved with neocon think tanks including:
- The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) Board of Advisors
- The Center for Security Policy (CSP)
- The Project for the New American Century (PNAC)
- The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)
Perle was a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group until December 2015. He is a self-described neoconservative. He co-authored the book An End To Evil: How To Win The War On Terror with fellow neoconservative David Frum in 2004. The book is regularly used as a defense of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and outlines important neoconservative ideas, including ways to abandon all Israeli-Palestinian peace processes, invade Syria and implement strict US domestic surveillance.
Perle is also “an ardent Zionist, a personal friend of [former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon, head of Hollinger Digital, part of the group that publishes the Daily Telegraph in Britain, a board member of the Jerusalem Post, a resident ‘fellow’ of the American Enterprise Institute and ex-employee of the Israeli weapons manufacturer Soltam.” Jensen, H. (2002, October 7). Pre-Emption, Disarmament Or Regime Change? Part III. Retrieved August 1, 2018, from www.antiwar.com/orig/jensen1b.html.
Over the years, Perle has been known by the nickname “Prince of Darkness.” He is a major player in the Israel lobby.
Perle’s connections with former Vice President Dick Cheney run deep, as both are members of the board of advisors to JINSA, along with National Security Adviser John Bolton and Douglas Feith. Under the auspices of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, Perle and Feith worked together in 1996 as advisers to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There they devised the war to oust Saddam Hussein from Iraq and the removal of as many Palestinians as possible from their homes and properties in the Israeli occupied territories.
Paul Wolfowitz
Wolfowitz is a political scientist and diplomat who served as the 10th President of the World Bank from 2005 to 2007 (and resigned under pressure from World Bank members over a scandal involving his misuse of power), United States Deputy Secretary of Defense (2001 – 2005) under G.W. Bush and United States Ambassador to Indonesia (1986 – 1989) under Ronald Reagan and G.H.W. Bush. Like Perle, Wolfowitz came from the Jewish think tank JINSA. He was the number two leader within the G.W. Bush administration, planning and implementing the Iraq War.
Douglas Feith
Born to a Jewish family in Philadelphia, PA, Feith attended Harvard University and Georgetown University Law Center. After graduation, he worked for three years as an attorney with the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP. Feith also came from the Jewish think tank JINSA.
In the Reagan Administration, he worked at the White House as a Middle East specialist for the National Security Council and then served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy.
Feith served as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the G.W. Bush administration from 2001 to 2005. His appointment was facilitated by connections he had with other neoconservatives, including Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. In that position, he helped devise the U.S. government’s strategy for the war on terrorism and contributed to the plans for the Afghanistan and Iraq war campaigns.
He is closely associated with the extremist group the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), which even attacks Jews that don’t agree with its extremist views. Feith frequently speaks at ZOA conferences.
Feith co-founded a small Washington DC law firm, Feith & Zell, which only has one international office: in Israel. Feith supervised the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, a group of policy and intelligence analysts created to provide senior government officials with raw intelligence, unvetted by the intelligence community. The office was responsible for hiring Lawrence Franklin, who was later convicted along with AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) employees Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman for passing classified national defense information to an Israeli diplomat, Naor Gilon.
Henry Kissinger
Kissinger was the 56th United States Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977 under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He was Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs from January 1969 until November 1975 under Nixon and Ford. He was appointed by President Reagan to chair the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America in July 1983 until 1985. He served as a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 1984 to 1990 under Ronald Reagan and G.H.W. Bush. He was a member of the Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy of the National Security Council and Defense Department from 1986 to 1988. And he served as a member of the Defense Policy Board from 2001 to 2016 (under Richard Perle). Henry Kissinger—a prominent member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission—has been a close personal advisor to every President from John F. Kennedy to Donald Trump.
John Bolton
Bolton is the current National Security Advisor to President Trump. He was the interim U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (2005 – 2006) under G.W. Bush. From 1989 to 1993, under G.H.W. Bush, he was Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. He held positions in the United States Agency for International Development and as Assistant Attorney General under Ronald Reagan (1985 – 1989). One of the most hawkish of war hawks, he aggressively supported and helped plan military action and regime change in Iraq and Libya and is now doing the same thing in Syria and Iran.
Additional Israeli citizens serving in high level U.S. government positions include:
- Janet Yellen – Federal Reserve Chair
- Stanley Fischer – Federal Reserve Vice-Chair
- Lincoln Bloomfield – Assistant Secretary of State
- Daniel Kurtzer – Ambassador to Israel
- Cliff Sobel – Ambassador to the Netherlands
- Stuart Bernstein – Ambassador to Denmark
- Nancy Brinker – Ambassador to Hungary
- Frank Lavin – Ambassador to Singapore
- Ron Weiser – Ambassador to Slovakia
- Martin Silverstein – Ambassador to Uruguay
- Jay Lefkowitz – Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council
- Ken Melman – White House Political Director
- Brad Blakeman – White House Director of Scheduling
I found 14 current and former U.S. senators who are dual U.S.-Israel citizens including:
- Barbara Boxer
- Russ Feingold
- Dianne Feinstein
- Frank Lautenberg
- Joe Lieberman
- Bernard Sanders
- Charles Schumer
And I found 32 current or past members of the U.S. House of Representatives who are dual U.S.-Israel citizens including:
- Eric Cantor
- Barney Frank
- Gabrielle Giffords
- Jerrold Nadler
- Adam Schiff
- Henry Waxman
- Anthony Weiner
As I said, I have been able to identify well over 100 high-level members of the U.S. government who are citizens of Israel. And for the sake of this column, I tried to find U.S. government officials who were dual citizens with other countries, and I couldn’t find any. Not one! I am not saying there aren’t any; I’m just saying I couldn’t find any. (I am not including those who were born on foreign soil to American parents. That is a completely different category.)
Remember what the U.S. State Department official website under the category of “Dual Citizenship” said:
Dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country. They are required to obey the laws of both countries, and either country has the right to enforce its laws. It is important to note the problems attendant to dual nationality. Claims of other countries upon U.S. dual-nationals often place them in situations where their obligations to one country are in conflict with the laws of the other. [Underlines added]
The U.S. government is awash with foreign citizens—Israeli citizens. And if you don’t think that Israel is exerting tremendous influence over the decisions, policies and wars of the United States, you are hopelessly naïve.
It is absurd that people who are citizens of foreign nations would be allowed to hold public office in the United States—or, at the very least, would not be required by law to disclose those foreign citizenships and recuse themselves from any vote or decision involving the countries in which they hold citizenship, as Michael Hager opined above. Senator Ted Cruz and Rep. Michele Bachmann were right to renounce their foreign citizenships (Canada and Switzerland respectively), albeit they both served several years in Congress as dual citizens and both surrendered their foreign citizenships only after receiving media backlash for it during their respective presidential campaigns.###
[This is an excerpt from an article originally posted at: https://chuckbaldwinlive.com]
Dr. Chuck Baldwin is a Christian pastor, commentator, prolific author and newspaper/internet columnist, and former radio talk-show host, who was also a US vice-presidential and presidential candidate for the Constitution Party. His website is: https://chuckbaldwinlive.com.
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