Leahy Law

The law was a way to say not yet without saying no.

And today, Washington has its own procedures, the War Powers Resolution, the Leahy Law, which restricts military assistance to forces that commit gross human rights violations.

And now, a brand new procedural wall, November 3rd, Trump didn't say no to Saudi Arabia, he said not yet, okay? That's Fitchel Law, American style.

And the most famous example of this Roman restraint is a place called Saguntum.

I'm trying to get more into law.

So you've probably heard of the Leahy law, right?

Of course.

I'm not sure who is trying to use it.

Certainly, there must be some people who are trying to use this as a legal argument to get us to stop funding genocide.

I don't know who they are.

For our listeners, what's the nuts and bolts of the Leahy Law?

Oh, sure.

And, and to ignore US law around that.

I mean, this was a big part of my resignation from the State Department, was just we have laws that we are breaking, whether it's the Leahy Law, whether it's Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act, which was sort of the high watermark of Congress passing legislation to say that, d- to, to, it, like, putting into law that security assistance needs to be tied to a country's human rights records.

It's why we have the human rights reports, although that was never part of the discussion inside the State Department.

Right.

Like, maybe she allows a Palestinian American speaker up there, she still loses.

Maybe she says, "You know, what is happening in Gaza right now is unacceptable, and un- under my presidency, I will enforce the Leahy Law," um, which is to say, "We will be looking at human rights abuses and linking that to our arms shipment." Maybe she loses anyway.

You know, may- may- maybe that is the case, but there's a difference between being seen as somebody who did not have the courage of your convictions and being seen as prophetic.

Mm-hmm.

And so do other officials like Jack Lew, Biden's ambassador to Israel, David Satterfield, who was Biden's special humanitarian envoy.

A lot of the processes that you're talking about, Sam, whether it's Leahy law investigations or other State Department processes based on the law, were not being run the way they would with any other country or the way that even officials involved thought they should.

So the Leahy Law, for instance, is a law from the late 90s saying if there are credible reports of grave human rights violations by a foreign military unit, the US cannot provide it with weapons or training.

Israel has never been sanctioned under the Leahy Law, although many other countries have.

But in this period, you saw Secretary of State Tony Blinken get multiple recommendations to subject Israel to these Leahy sanctions and to bypass them, right, to essentially treat them as optional.

He, in fact, chose to say that one Israeli battalion, that's a Yehuda, had, quote, remediated.

And so they invite me in my capacity as, you know, an expert in international humanitarian and human rights law in order to provide testimony before the commissioners explaining why the bond is illegal.

They also invite Charles Cablaja, who's a 37-year veteran of the State Department who oversaw the Leahy Amendment.

application and lack thereof who is going to testify why it's illegal under u.s federal law and we were you know there together with some 100 members of palm beach county residents who basically don't want to invest in genocide and would like to see those investments you know accrue to them Within 15 minutes of the meeting, the mayor basically insists that speaking time will be limited, that those who don't put their exact addresses will not be allowed to speak, that those outside of the jurisdiction will not be allowed to speak, and then says that no one will be able to discuss the Israel bonds at all.

This is at a public briefing.

credence.That's where I wanted to go next, which is from what you heard, how the Biden administration officials, both internally and externally, justified this, uh, exceptionalism for, uh, the Israelis.

Or you mentioned it was, there was a perversion of process, but the, the process itself for Israelis had long been, uh, exceptional and, like, sh- shortcuts and, and non-application of things like the Leahy Laws.

So I wanna hear actually, you know, later on your reflections on what the [laughs], what the real motivations and real reasons, uh, after your reporting, whether it's anti-Palestinian bias or, or other factors.

But at least for now, what were, what were the conversations of, of how to justify that? Especially, you know, as images kept streaming out of Gaza that seemed to contradict, uh, this insistence from the Biden administration that they couldn't come to any conclusion yet, they were still looking at it, when they had come to much faster conclusions in, in other conflicts, like in, in Ukraine and, and elsewhere.