By Richard Edmondson | Fig Trees and Vineyards | January 17, 2014
Yesterday I posted an article on the FBI investigation of New York Congressman Michael Grimm in connection with campaign donations to his 2010 campaign made by supporters of Israeli Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto. If you haven’t read the article, it’s here.
Pinto is listed as one of the richest rabbis in Israel (he is rabbi to some of the world’s wealthiest oligarchs), and in the article I speculated on whether other supporters of Israel now serving in congress may have received donations from the same source.
Well, a news article posted in 2012 would seem to indicate that there are, and that one of them is Eric Cantor, one of the most powerful members of Congress, and a staunch supporter of the Jewish state (Cantor is himself Jewish). The article in question is posted at Al-Monitor. Here is an excerpt.
Indeed, detailed examination of federal campaign filings by Al-Monitor indicate that the top seven donors to Cantor’s 2008 campaign are followers or associates of Rabbi Pinto. Together, the group of close Rabbi Pinto associates that made up Cantor’s seven top donors in 2008 gave about $330,000 to the Virginia Republican–almost 10% of the $3.9 million total Cantor raised for the 2008 race. None of them are from Virginia, and some had not previously given to US political campaigns.
Josef Ben Moha of New Jersey donated $48,100 to Cantor’s Victory Fund on April 11, 2008 — his only campaign donation in US records. Moha is listed as managing director of Livono (or Livorno) Partners, whose CEO Ben Zion Suky also donated $48,100 to Cantor on the same date. Suky serves as the “right-hand man … translator, gatekeeper and conduit to the outside world” for Pinto, the Forward reported last year. He also owns property with Rabbi Pinto’s wife, as well as a porn DVD distribution business.
Haim Milo Revah, a real estate developer from California who has credited Pinto with offering successful business advice, donated $48,100 to Cantor on April 21, 2008, records show.
Real estate broker Haim Binstock, and his wife his wife, Gallya Binstock, together donated $91,600 to Cantor’s campaign on Oct. 31, 2008. Binstock’s business partner Ilan Bracha, and his wife, Mati Bracha, also donated $91,600 to Cantor’s campaign on the same date, campaign filings show. In 2008, Binstock and Bracha Manhattan property they planned to donate for use as a synagogue for Rabbi Pinto, they told The Wall Street Journal last year.
More recently, George Klein, described by The New York Times as a longtime Republican power broker who attends Pinto’s Shuva Israel congregation at 155 E. 58th St. in Manhattan, donated $50,000 to Cantor’s Victory Fund on Oct. 18, 2011, campaign filings show. Klein, who has donated to several other Republican candidates in smaller amounts, is also a member, with Cantor, of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
As I noted in yesterday’s article, Grimm is reportedly a close confidante of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Israeli police seem to be trying to deliberately sabotage the FBI’s investigation of him.
The FBI is hoping to have Pinto testify against Grimm, but the rabbi has been charged in Israel with bribing a police official, a development which would compromise his credibility as a witness–presumably against Grimm or any other member of Congress who may have broken the law. A wiretap reportedly in the possession of the FBI has Israeli police threatening Pinto.
The case has been written about extensively by blogger Richard Silverstein, who has reported that among the allegations are that donors to Grimm’s 2010 campaign were promised green cards in return for their support (campaign contributions by non-citizens are illegal) and also that some of the donations exceeded the legal limit.
“There is no evidence of any impropriety in Cantor’s contacts with Rabbi Pinto,” notes the 2012 Al-Monitor report.