The New Yorker has a long article on the proliferation of Israeli private espionage firms, such as Black Cube (which Harvey Weinstein hired to get John Podhoretz), focusing on one with the less cool name of Psy-Group:

Private Mossad for Hire

Inside an effort to influence American elections, starting with one small-town race.

By Adam Entous and Ronan Farrow

In dusty Tulare in California’s Central Valley (soon with High Speed Rail!), a doctor from Israel was bilking the local government so badly that locals started a campaign to recall the Israeli’s political frontman, some South Asian guy on the local hospital board. The Israeli hospital administrator hired this firm of Israeli ex-spies in Tel Aviv to smear the local challenger using … social media.

Analogies to allegations of Russian election interference are obvious. In fact, the Democratic meltdown over “Russian interference” served as great marketing for the Israeli cloak and dagger entrepreneurs.

Ultimately, the $350k paid to the Mossad Squad cost the Tulare crooks about $2,000 per vote, because their boy only wound up with about 175 votes, losing in a landslide. Shortly afterwards, massive financial misconduct was discovered at the hospital. (There’s a lot of grifting to be done off hospitals. That’s what Tony Rezko and Governor Blago got caught doing. Oddly, state senator Obama approved the key bill in their scheme for rigging the hospital board as head of the relevant state senate committee, but that’s not interesting.)

So maybe this foreign electoral interference isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? It’s almost as if a bunch of ethics-challenged foreigners on a different continent aren’t really that formidable of a force in American elections.