More subterfuge in our discourse. The Washington Post published an op-ed piece yesterday on the importance of finding a legal basis for an attack on Iran. Not surprisingly, the op-ed’s authors, Jeffrey H. Smith and John B. Bellinger III, lawyers at Arnold & Porter, supplied such a basis.

Grant Smith sent me this letter that he had sent to the Washington Post:

Would it be too much to ask that WAPO reveal that according to the Justice Department’s Foreign Agent Registration Act section, Arnold and Porter has been serving as Israel’s registered foreign agent since June of 1964? Would it be a lot more to mention that since 2010 the firm has been receiving a $10,000 per month retainer for advisory services and “special projects?” Could WAPO possibly trouble itself to inform readers that according to FARA filings the firm earned $1.2 million in fees in 2010 alone from the Israeli government? Arnold and Porter is now Israel’s largest and longest serving registered foreign agent (not that there aren’t more than a handful of unregistered ones). More to the point, why should Americans believe such legalistic and non-contextual Iran attack propaganda courtesy of Israeli foreign agents?

Smith wrote about Arnold & Porter in his book Divert. Excerpt: