Got questions about the Iran nuclear deal? Too bad, if you were an AIPAC activist at a briefing last week with top Obama administration officials.
At the briefing on July 29, Howard Kohr, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s director, stopped the proceedings before his activists could ask questions. The question is why?
Did the Obama administration bigfoot AIPAC and muscle into the pro-Israel group’s lobbying session only to disingenuously complain when administration officials ran out of their allotted time? Or was AIPAC not sufficiently accommodating when administration officials asked to make their case to pro-Israel activists?
Here’s what happened, as confirmed by four people close to the top Obama officials who spoke anonymously, as well as an AIPAC spokesman, who spoke on the record.
AIPAC flew in 600 to 700 activists last week from across the country to lobby against the sanctions-relief-for-nuclear-restrictions deal reached July 14 between the major powers and Iran.
AIPAC opposes the deal, saying it endangers Israel and U.S. interests, and wants Congress to exercise its power to kill the deal within two months — by the end of September or thereabouts.
Hence the fly-in, just before Congress took its August break.
President Barack Obama, who backs the deal, got wind of the fly-in and asked his staff to offer to give the AIPAC activists a briefing on the deal from the administration’s perspective.
It was all very last-minute, AIPAC said, but the pro-Israel lobby budgeted half an hour on July 29 for the officials.
At 8 a.m., the White House chief of staff, Denis McDonough; the undersecretary of state for political affairs, Wendy Sherman, who led the Iran talks; and Adam Szubin, the director of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces sanctions, were set to speak at a hotel to the activists.
The three gave presentations, splitting the 30 minutes, before asking for questions. Kohr stepped in and said no questions.
This is where the accounts of the Obama administration officials differ from AIPAC’s version of events.
Sources close to the administration said the officials were told there would be no questions when they scheduled the meeting, but they called for them anyway and were shut down.
AIPAC said the officials could have taken as many questions as they liked within the allotted 30 minutes, but they chose not to and ran out of time. AIPAC spokesman Marshall Wittmann said the format was entirely up to the speakers. They could have launched straight into questions if they wished.
“It is absolutely not true that administration officials were denied an opportunity to take questions and answers at our event,” Wittmann said in an email.
“At the last minute, the administration requested to address our 700 activists who were in Washington to lobby against the flawed Iran nuclear deal. We granted their request and afforded them 30 minutes to make their case in any way they chose. In fact, we actually suggested that they take questions from the audience. Instead, the administration sent three officials and used more than their allotted time with their remarks rather than devoting any of their time for questions.”
So who’s right? It’s hard to say.
Administration officials are worried that their message is not getting through unfiltered to the Jewish community. The officials badly wanted to banter with the activists.
The frustration might explain Obama’s angry tone Aug. 2 when he asked liberal activists to speak more loudly than an AIPAC-affiliated group dumping millions into TV ads opposing the deal.
It also explains why Ernest Moniz, the energy secretary, gave a private briefing on Aug. 3 to top Jewish organizational leaders.
Don’t expect the briefings to stop.