Hastert Puts Pro-Israel PAC in the Hot Seat
As House Speaker Dennis Hastert finds himself in the hot seat over what he knew about Mark Foley and when he knew it, the collateral damage is extending to the pro-Israel donors who consider him a close ally.
NORPAC, the pro-Israel political action committee based in the New York area, is scheduled to hold a fundraiser in Englewood, N.J. for Hastert on the evening of October 16, and for now, the show will go on.
“When we first agreed to do this … we said, ‘Oh, this is just going to be a lot of fun,’” said Dr. Ben Chouake, the president of NORPAC and the host for the event. He punctuated that statement with a long, rolling laugh.
“It’s harder to raise money under these circumstances, there’s no question,” Chouake said, adding that he expected attendance to be impacted considerably.
Chouake did not rule out the possibility of cancelling the event, which Hastert is scheduled to attend, depending on the facts that emerge.
“Obviously … if he did something obviously terrible, than we’d have to rethink it,” Chouake said. “At this point, these are incidents that happened three years aog, so let’s see how it plays out.”
Beyond the Foley scandal, Chouake added that the pre-event buzz for the Hasert event has been dampened considerably by the Republicans’ overall bleak prospects for November.
“The future prospects [of a politician] are as important as the current status,” Chouake said, adding that there is a big difference between being the House speaker or majority leader, and being a member of the minority party.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30