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The news is starting to get out...

Money trail behind
Kerry's Iran stance
Candidate has financial ties to backers of mullah regime

Posted: October 3, 2004
10:25 p.m. Eastern

WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kerry's call for providing Iran with the nuclear fuel it seeks, even while the regime is believed to be only months away from developing nuclear weapons, is being linked to his campaign contributions from backers of the mullah government in Tehran.

During last Thursday's nationally televised debate between the Democratic presidential candidate and President Bush, Kerry insisted as president he would provide Tehran with the nuclear fuel it wants for a pledge to use it for peaceful purposes only.

"I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes," Kerry said in a critique of the Bush administration's handling of Tehran's nuclear program, which the Iranians claim is only for civilian purposes.

The comments came in response to a question about whether diplomacy and sanctions can resolve the "nuclear problems" with North Korea and Iran.

"If they weren't willing to work a deal, then we could have put sanctions together," Kerry said of Tehran. "The president did nothing."

Among Kerry's top fund-raisers are three Iranian-Americans who have been pushing for dramatic changes in U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Most prominent among them is Hassan Nemazee, 54, an investment banker based in New York. Nominated to become U.S. ambassador to Argentina by President Clinton in 1999, Nemazee eventually withdrew his nomination after a former partner raised allegations of business improprieties, WND previously reported.

Nemazee was a major Clinton donor, giving $80,000 to the Democratic National Committee during the 1996 election cycle and attending at least one of the famous White House fund-raising coffees.

In 2001, at the invitation of Mobil Oil Chairman Lucio Noto, whom he counts as a "personal friend," Nemazee joined the board of the American-Iranian Council, a U.S. lobbying group that consistently has supported lifting U.S. sanctions on Iran and accommodating the Tehran regime.

The Kerry camp has identified Nemazee as having raised more than $100,000 for the senator's campaign, WND reported last spring.

A Nemazee friend in Silicon Valley, Faraj Aalaei, has raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for the Kerry campaign. Aalaei has worked in the telecommunications industry for 22 years and is the chief executive officer of Centillium Communications, a publicly traded company.

Last year, Aalaei married a 35-year-old recent immigrant from Iran named Susan Akbarpour, whom the Kerry campaign also lists as having raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for the campaign.

In just six years since coming to the United States on a tourist visa from Iran, Akbarpour has started a newspaper, a magazine and, most recently, a trade association whose goal is to get sanctions lifted and promote U.S. business and investment in Iran.

Most odd about the support from Akbarpour, writes Kenneth Timmerman in this month's issue of the American Spectator, is that she claimed political asylum from the Iranian regime when she came to this country.

Meanwhile, Kerry has embraced the entire political agenda of Akbarpour and other wealthy Iranian-Americans embracing Tehran. Those positions include:

ending the fingerprinting of Iranian visitors to the U.S.;
expanding "family reunion" visas to allow extended family members of Iranians living in the U.S. to immigrate here legally and in large numbers;
offering a "dialogue" with the hard-line, terrorist-supporting clerics in Tehran;
help Iran join the World Trade Organization.

The stunning remarks by Kerry were initially reported only by WorldNetDaily, and some analysts suggested the statements were misunderstood, taken out of context or simply a verbal gaffe by the candidate.

However, the same policy of accommodation toward Iran's nuclear aspirations is clearly outlined on Kerry's campaign website as well.

Under the heading "Prevent Iran From Developing Nuclear Weapons," the Kerry campaign makes the same point emphatically – that the U.S. should still give or sell the nuclear fuel Iran wants in exchange for a promise not to build nuclear weapons.

"A nuclear armed Iran is an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States and our allies in the region," the campaign policy statement reads. "While we have been preoccupied in Iraq, Iran has reportedly been moving ahead with its nuclear program. We can no longer sit on the sidelines and leave the negotiations to the Europeans. It is critical that we work with our allies to resolve these issues and lead a global effort to prevent Iran from obtaining the technology necessary to build nuclear weapons. Iran claims that its nuclear program is only to meet its domestic energy needs. John Kerry's proposal would call their bluff by organizing a group of states to offer Iran the nuclear fuel they need for peaceful purposes and take back the spent fuel so they cannot divert it to build a weapon. If Iran does not accept this offer, their true motivations will be clear. Under the current circumstances, John Kerry believes we should support the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) efforts to discern the full extent of Iran's nuclear program, while pushing Iran to agree to a verifiable and permanent suspension of its enrichment and reprocessing programs. If this process fails, we must lead the effort to ensure that the IAEA takes this issue to the Security Council for action."

However, according to the latest intelligence reports, Iran has decided at the highest levels of government to build its nuclear weapons program within the next four months. Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has urged his country's weapons developers to step up work on making a nuclear bomb, a U.S. official said, according to Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service.

Citing an authoritative source in the Iranian exile community, the official said Khamenei met recently with senior government and military leaders regarding the nuclear weapons program.

Khamenei told the gathering, "We must have two bombs ready to go in January or you are not Muslims," the official said.

Tehran has said the recent International Atomic Energy Agency resolution calling on Iran to halt uranium enrichment could lead to the country's withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Officials of the Kerry campaign were unavailable this weekend.

In addition to the nuclear weapons threat, Iran test-fired a Shihab-3 medium-range ballistic missile, capable of reaching Israel, Sept. 18 and also in August. The missile is reportedly capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

During the debate, Bush said he wants to continue to work with the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Great Britain to "convince the Iranian mullahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions."

Responding to Kerry, Bush noted the U.S. already has sanctioned Iran.

"We can't sanction them any more," he said. "There are sanctions in place on Iran."

Israel has said it wants to await the outcome of international pressure on Iran before it considers a pre-emptive military strike on reactors as it did in 1981 in Iraq.

At another point in the debate, Kerry also said he wants to end research on bunker-busting tactical nuclear weapons, which presumably could take out an Iranian reactor if his sanctions are ineffective.

Kerry said it "doesn't make sense" for Bush to be pursuing a new set of nuclear weapons when the U.S. is trying to tell countries, such as North Korea, to disarm.

"You talk about mixed messages," he said. "We're telling other people, 'You can't have nuclear weapons, but we're pursuing a new nuclear weapon that we might even contemplate using.'"

"Not this president," Kerry said. "I'm going to shut that program down, and we're going to make it clear to the world we're serious about containing nuclear proliferation."

Mr. Nemazee is the Chairman and CEO of Nemazee Capital Corporation. Nemazee Capital Corporation is a holdings company, which invests in both public and private companies.

From 1979 to 1987, he served as Chairman and CEO of HN Properties, which developed real estate in Houston, Texas and Suburban Washington, D.C.

From 1972 to 1979, Mr. Nemazee served as Chairman and CEO of Nemazee Holdings. Nemazee Holdings was joint venture partner of American International Group, Morgan Bank and Linbeck Construction in Iran.

- Member of Board of Trustees Asia Society March 2003
- Nominated by President Clinton to be the U.S. Ambassador to Argentina 1999

******

Nemazee is an influential figure with many friends in high places in groups such as the American-Iranian Council (AIC), the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), and the Iranian-American Bar Association (IABA). Nemazee’s name is also well known in Democratic Party circles. He was a prominent contributor to Bob Torricelli’s New Jersey Senate campaign. The multimillionaire entrepreneur also contributed $50,000 to his friend Al Gore’s Recount Fund (and $250,000 to the Gore campaign), $60,000 to Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund, and over $150,000 to the Democratic National Committee. Clinton attempted to reward him by naming him U.S. Ambassador to Argentina — but the Senate declined to confirm him after Forbes magazine published, in May 1999, an extremely damaging expose of his shady financial dealings.

Nemazee was involved in a March 2002 fundraiser for Senate Foreign Affairs Committee heavyweight Joe Biden (D-DE). This event was hosted by Sadegh Namazikhah, another AIC member whom Aryo Pirouznia charges with trying to improve public perception of “one of the most despotic regimes in the world.”

Before the Council on Foreign Relations in December 2003, Kerry announced that he would be willing as President to pursue rapprochement with Iran: “As president, I will be prepared early on to explore areas of mutual interest with Iran, just as I was prepared to normalize relations with Vietnam a decade ago.” And most notoriously, his staff sent out an email that somehow made its way to the government-controlled Mehr News Agency in Tehran, where it was trumpeted as evidence of his resolve to patch things up with the mullahs. “It is in the urgent interests of the people of the United States,” the message read, “to restore our country’s credibility in the eyes of the world. America needs the kind of leadership that will repair alliances with countries on every continent that have been so damaged in the past few years, as well as build new friendships and overcome tensions with others.”

Initially, a Kerry aide dismissed the story as “just a hoax.” But this pose proved impossible to maintain. Kerry’s senior foreign affairs advisor, Rand Beers, later admitted that the message was genuine, saying: “I have no idea how they got hold of that letter, which was prepared for Democrats Abroad.

Rob Wiley of Locke Lidell & Sapp, the elite Texas law firm is representing Nemazee.

******

Rob Wiley became the president of the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Study Group and incorporated the group as the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Bar Association.

Pulling from the Health & Safety code, the Probate code, the Property code, and other laws, Wiley put together a packet of legal documents that every same-sex couple needs to be "as married as possible" in Texas.

http://www.robwiley.com/history.htm

The history of this law firm is a little John Grisham, a lot of perseverance, and a great deal of good fortune.

I knew that I wanted to be a lawyer since I was in high school in Midland, Texas

I fell into a really smart group of kids and we had an excellent debate team. My junior year of high school, I started practicing law.

Do Kerry's Backers Account For His Iran Policy?

John Kerry and John Edwards Iran policy proposal has raised eyebrows around the world, offering to give the Iranian hardliners nuclear fuel in exchange for a promise to drop their enrichment program. Now WorldNet Daily reports that three top financial backers of the Kerry/Edwards ticket may account for the unusual notion of giving fissile materials to the largest backers of Islamofascist terror groups:

Sen. John Kerry's call for providing Iran with the nuclear fuel it seeks, even while the regime is believed to be only months away from developing nuclear weapons, is being linked to his campaign contributions from backers of the mullah government in Tehran.
During last Thursday's nationally televised debate between the Democratic presidential candidate and President Bush, Kerry insisted as president he would provide Tehran with the nuclear fuel it wants for a pledge to use it for peaceful purposes only. ...
Among Kerry's top fund-raisers are three Iranian-Americans who have been pushing for dramatic changes in U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Most prominent among them is Hassan Nemazee, 54, an investment banker based in New York. ... Nemazee was a major Clinton donor, giving $80,000 to the Democratic National Committee during the 1996 election cycle and attending at least one of the famous White House fund-raising coffees.
In 2001, at the invitation of Mobil Oil Chairman Lucio Noto, whom he counts as a "personal friend," Nemazee joined the board of the American-Iranian Council, a U.S. lobbying group that consistently has supported lifting U.S. sanctions on Iran and accommodating the Tehran regime.
The Kerry camp has identified Nemazee as having raised more than $100,000 for the senator's campaign, WND reported last spring.

Nemazee isn't the only five- to six-figure donor to the Kerry campaign connected to efforts aimed at lifting the economic sanctions against the Iranian mullahcracy. Faraj Aalaei has raised between $50,000 to $100,000 for the Kerry campaign while his new wife, Susan Akbarpour, has raised a similar amount. Akbarpour came to the US from Iran on a tourist visa but has since launched a newspaper, magazine, and a trade association that also lobbies for normalized relations with the Iranian government.

Akbarpour, it should be noted, sought asylum from the Iranians last year when she emigrated, according to author Kenneth Timmerman, who has written on this subject before.

The article also outlines other positions that Kerry has taken for normalization with the current Iranian regime rather than support the nascent democratization efforts within Iran. It appears that the Kerry campaign's commitment to fighting terrorism and its sponsors takes a back seat to pandering to its financial supporters -- as does American national security.

UPDATE: Here's another look at Nemazee, from Ront Page, via Jihad Watch:

Frivolous lawsuits have long been used as weapons of the powerful against the weak; a particularly egregious example is now playing out in Texas, courtesy of one of John Kerry’s most controversial supporters: the Iranian Hassan Nemazee. Nemazee is pursuing a ten-million-dollar damage claim against the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI) and its coordinator, Aryo B. Pirouznia. A Nemazee victory in this suit would almost certainly muzzle or destroy altogether the SMCCDI, one of the most energetic and courageous opponents of Iran’s entrenched but uneasy mullahocracy. But now that Nemazee’s lawsuit has been filed, it has become increasingly clear that it could embarrass the entire Democratic Party — and severely damage the already flagging candidacy of John Kerry.
Nemazee is an influential figure with many friends in high places in groups such as the American-Iranian Council (AIC), the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), and the Iranian-American Bar Association (IABA). Nemazee’s name is also well known in Democratic Party circles. He was a prominent contributor to Bob Torricelli’s New Jersey Senate campaign. The multimillionaire entrepreneur also contributed $50,000 to his friend Al Gore’s Recount Fund (and $250,000 to the Gore campaign), $60,000 to Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund, and over $150,000 to the Democratic National Committee. Clinton attempted to reward him by naming him U.S. Ambassador to Argentina — but the Senate declined to confirm him after Forbes magazine published, in May 1999, an extremely damaging expose of his shady financial dealings.
Undaunted, Nemazee continued efforts to establish fruitful contacts between Iranian groups advocating normalization of relations with Iran and high-level members of the Democratic Party. He joined the Board of Directors of the AIC, an organization whose president, Hooshang Amirahmadi, is identified on the SMCCDI website as a “well known lobbyist for the Iranian Mullahocracy.” Nemazee was involved in a March 2002 fundraiser for Senate Foreign Affairs Committee heavyweight Joe Biden (D-DE). This event was hosted by Sadegh Namazikhah, another AIC member whom Aryo Pirouznia charges with trying to improve public perception of “one of the most despotic regimes in the world.”

And now we have John Kerry offering nuclear fuel to the same Iranians that finance Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. Let me repeat this: John Kerry wants to give nuclear fuel to the people behind two of the worst Islamofascist terror organizations in the world. Now we know why.

UPDATE: Here's more on Akbarpour from Kenneth Timmerman's Insight article last March:

"I am an actor in U.S. politics," Akbarpour boasted to Insight in an interview. "I am a fund-raiser for all candidates who listen to us and our concerns."
The two candidates Akbarpour said she would "never help" are President George W. Bush and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), because both have taken a no-nonsense approach to the Iranian regime. Federal Election Commission records show that Akbarpour contributed $1,000 to the Kerry committee in June 2002 and another $2,000 in June 2003.
Akbarpour tells Insight she is not a U.S. citizen. "I came here in 1997 as a tourist and changed my status several times. At one point, I had an H-1 visa. Then I got married last year and got my green card." Under federal election laws, permanent residents are allowed to make political campaign contributions. But her June 2002 contribution to the Kerry campaign appears to have been made before she acquired status as a permanent resident.
One immigration lawyer Insight consulted in Los Angeles doubted that Akbarpour could have obtained an H-1 visa, which is reserved for foreign workers sponsored by U.S. companies that need their specialized skills. "At the time, the INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service] was applying a very strict interpretation of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act and was not allowing any hiring of Iranian nationals. And you couldn't convert from a tourist visa to an H-1 visa, especially if the tourist visa had already expired."
Because the United States has no embassy in Tehran, Iranians seeking to visit the United States must travel to Turkey or the United Arab Emirates to apply for a tourist or student visa, then wait several months while a background check is performed.
That experience still rankles Akbarpour, who has put loosening visa requirements for Iranians on the top of her political agenda, along with lifting U.S. sanctions on Iran and getting the U.S. government to open a dialogue with the regime in Tehran. Just by coincidence, those are the top three priorities of the Tehran regime, as well.

It's not as if the information on Kerry's Iranian backers has been a secret; it's just that the media hasn't looked very hard at it. One would think the loopy idea of shipping nuclear fuel to a country we know supports the terrorists we're fighting would get them to ask these questions...

UPDATE: More Nemazee from Front Page, last January:

A third cash-and-Kerryer, who during this same period gave Kerry more than $180,000, is Hassan Nemazee. This Iranian-American investor raised a cool $250,000 for Al Gore in November 1995, and he and his family slushed another $150,000 to Democrats during the mid-1990s. Six Nemazee family members and friends (including the caretaker of his 12-acre Katonah, N.Y., estate) donated a total of $60,000 – the maximum legally allowed -- to Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund.
In the closing days of 1998 Clinton named Nemazee his Ambassador-designate to Argentina. Hillary Clinton embraced the Muslim moneyman at a January 1999 White House celebration of the Islamic holiday Eid. The Senate, however, refused to confirm the controversial nominee after a Forbes Magazine investigation exposed Nemazee’s questionable business dealings. “He was,” said a bitter former business partner, “the Iranian equivalent of J.R. Ewing.”
The Forbes magazine investigation also documented how, in order to get his hands on public-employee pension fund monies allocated for minority managers, the U.S.-born Nemazee had falsely claimed to be a Hispanic of Venezuelan background and, on another occasion, an Asian-Indian.
But Nemazee’s cynical lust for money can be frightening as well as laughable. He is a founding board member of the Iranian American Political Action Committee [IAPAC], which seeks to create friendly and lucrative business relationships with the medieval theocratic dictatorship now ruling Iran. Iran is, of course, an “Axis of Evil” nation that seeks to acquire nuclear weapons and is on our State Department’s official list of nations that support terrorism. Nemazee seeks to enrich himself by further enriching the power-mad Mullahs ruling Iran.

Here's the Forbes article. Nemazee appears to be quite the character -- of the sort that one discovers regularly around Democrats, as the Front Page article details.