The media cheered RT's foreign agent registration. And that's fair enough. State funded media outlets, especially those from hostile nations, should have to register as foreign agents. But now that the push is on to have Al Jazeera, Qatar's terror network, register as a foreign agent, expect the media to fight it tooth and nail. RT was politically erratic, but Al Jazeera is politically bonded with the left.
That's despite Al Jazeera America's abuses of its lefty female employees.
Once this takes off, expect the media to start shouting about freedom of speech. Even though no such thing exists in Qatar or Iran.
A bipartisan team of lawmakers is urging the Trump administration to launch an investigation into the Qatari-funded news outlet Al Jazeera, which the Washington Free Beacon recently disclosed had carried out a secret, months-long spy operation on American Jews and supporters of Israel, according to a draft copy of congressional correspondence obtained by this publication.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D., N.J.) and Lee Zeldin (R., N.Y.) are circulating a letter to their congressional colleagues urging them to back an effort demanding the Trump administration's Department of Justice open an investigation into Al Jazeera's recent spy operation. The lawmakers argue that in light of this and other efforts by the Middle Eastern news network it should register as a foreign agent under U.S. law.
Such a designation under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, would show Al Jazeera is under the thumb of the Qatari government, which funds its operations, and not an independent news organization, as it claims to be.
One veteran congressional adviser familiar with the effort told the Free Beacon that Al Jazeera's latest efforts to infiltrate the American Jewish community shows its strings are being pulled by the Qatari government.
"After confirming its state sponsored espionage, the case for FARA is a slam dunk," the source said. "And now we see Congress is pressuring the administration to do the right thing. AJ doesn't have any friends on Capitol Hill, so the Trump administration should be taking this pressure seriously."
"When foreign governments are sending secret spies to infiltrate Washington-based organizations, Congress understands its time to act," the source added.
This only highlights the fact that Jewish activists who took Qatar's invites were played. And played badly. Nick Muzin has some 'splaining to do to the Jewish activists who were sucked in by Qatar.
He got paid. They got screwed.
Nick Muzin, whose firm, Stonington Strategies, signed Qatar as a client last summer, has gotten a raise. The Qatari government is now paying Muzin $300,000 a month, six times the $50,000 rate Muzin commanded when he was hired in August, according to Justice Department filings
Al Jazeera has escalated its campaign from propaganda to espionage. And that's worse than anything RT did. Registering it as a foreign agent is the very least that should happen.
It's a foreign agent operating on American soil. It's been a drop box for terrorist groups. And now it's actively attempting to interfere in American politics. That's what the left claims to be outraged by these days. So now it can try living up to its own standards for a change instead of defending the propaganda arm of a foreign terror state.