16 thoughts on “Rabbi Pinto’s ‘Generosity’ Extends Up GOP Food Chain – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. Legal costs for Mike Grimm amount to over $500k, which is huge. Most interesting, it’s run up as a debt and his attorney is from Patton Boggs, (in)famous for its high-profile cases for the Republican party. I’ve come across these people many times:

    “Benjamin Ginsberg, chief legal counsel; Ginsberg is a partner at the law and lobbying firm Patton Boggs, provided outside counsel to the Bush re-election campaign as well as to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.”

    In the Valerie Plame case and cover-up, it was PB partner Bob Luskin who was involved with the Bush White House and Karl Rove. My diary in 2005/2006 – Crucial Paragraph Viveca Novak :: Stands Out Like A Sore Thumb.

  2. The original story how Grimm’s Jewish money got media attention in 2010. Follow the links, especially in the second article at the end from Room Eight – New York politics.

    McMahon fires aide over ‘Jewish $$’ flap

    STATEN ISLAND, NY (SI-live) July 30, 2010 — Rep. Michael McMahon fired his campaign spokeswoman last night for “inappropriate” remarks after the New York Observer reported that she tried to underscore Republican challenger Michael Grimm’s out-of-district donor base with a list of donors entitled “Grimm Jewish Money Q2.”

    In an effort to show that Grimm has lackluster support at home, the re-election campaign for McMahon (D-Staten Island/Brooklyn) compiled a list of his Jewish donors, most of whom live off Staten Island. The 80 names on the list for the second quarter fundraising period mostly had addresses in Florida and Manhattan.

    Ms. Nelson told the Observer the list was created by Debra Solomon, the campaign’s finance director. “She herself is Jewish so she knows a lot of people in that community,” Ms. Nelson said.

    Only a few names on the list — which McMahon’s camp provided to PolitickerNY, a blog on the website of the New York Observer — call the Staten Island/Brooklyn district home.


    There also was a separate list indicating who had previously made contributions to the failed presidential and senatorial bids of former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

    Grimm, 40, a New Springville resident, former undercover FBI agent and a Marine who served in Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm, was endorsed by Giuliani last month.

    McMahon’s re-election campaign fired Jennifer Nelson for circulating Jewish donor list

      1. I’m aware Neeman was part of the former cabinet. I tried to find the English version of Haaretz article linked under “smoothing things over” [Hebrew]. The Pinto affair manifested itself over the last 3-4 years.

  3. Kabbalist Under Fire For Missing Millions Blames
    Aide, Notorious PR Flack
    Dec. 20, 2011 – Rabbi Yoshiyahu
    Pinto’s spokesmen are blaming Pinto’s estranged fundraising
    assistant and 5WPR head Ronn Torossian for the disappearance of
    milllions of dollars of Pinto’s charity’s money, and Torossian’s
    company is reportedly responsible for sockpuppeting false
    information about Pinto on Wikipedia. In 2008, 5WPR sockpuppeting
    for Agriprocessors and Sholom Rubashkin was exposed by
    FailedMessiah.com in a story that made headlines Ronn Torossian, president and CEO of 5W Public
    Relations
    Ronn Torossian is the founder, President
    & Chief Executive Officer of New York-based 5W Public Relations. Under his
    direction, the PR Firm has achieved tremendous growth and success
    and is ranked as one of the largest independent U.S. PR Agencies.
    At 5WPR, Ronn Torossian has worked on PR
    programs for clients including Cantor Fitzgerald, Coca-Cola,
    Pepsi-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, Tropicana, Microsoft, XM Radio,
    celebrities including Pamela Anderson & Snoop Dogg, and
    government entities including the President of Serbia, Government
    of Israel, and Tourism Ministries of Morocco and Canada. He is a
    regular commentator to media outlets on public relations and
    marketing. Ronn Torossian was born and raised in New York City and
    resides with his family in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of
    Manhattan. He is an active board member of numerous
    charities.

  4. RE: “Rabbi Pinto’s ‘Generosity’ Extends Up GOP
    Food Chain”
    A RELEVANT QUOTATION: “You
    can’t use tact with a Congressman! A Congressman is a hog! You must
    take a stick and hit him on the snout!”
    ~ From
    ‘The Education of Henry
    Adams’
    (winner of the 1919 Pulitzer Prize), By
    Henry Brooks Adams, 1838-1918 (American
    journalist-historian-academic-novelist; grandson of President John
    Quincy Adams; great-grandson of President John Adams) •
    The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams –
    http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2044The Education of
    Henry Adams: An Autobiography
    (Google eBook) –
    http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Education_of_Henry_Adams.html?id=-ThaAAAAMAAJ

  5. Interview Ronn Torossian: One on One: ‘It’s all about shaping a story’

    (JPost) May 8, 2009 – ‘One of my first teachers in PR was Avi Weiss,” Ronn Torossian says, referring to the activist American rabbi who had an impact on his early years. It was Weiss who taught the young follower – and subsequent national president – of Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Betar movement the importance of being “as close as you can to the cameras to further your message.”

    It was thus that the 34-year-old founding president and CEO of the New York City-based 5W Public Relations “was on the cover of every daily paper in Israel, two days after moving here in 1997,” at the age of 23, shortly after graduating from college. Ironically, the occasion for this instant publicity more than a decade ago was the activity surrounding the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras el-Amud. Torossian accompanied the first group of residents moving into a building purchased by none other than Miami-based philanthropist Irving Moskowitz.

    The photo-op was only the beginning. During what would turn out to be a two-year stint in this country, Torossian was one of three founders – together with fellow Betar alumni and peers, today Likud MK Danny Danon and Kadima MK Yoel Hasson – of Yerushalayim Shelanu (Jerusalem Is Ours), a secular organization promoting the right of Jews to live anywhere they choose in the city of Jerusalem.


    Among his past and present clients in the Israeli business world, Torossian has worked with Nice Systems, gaming mogul Noam Lanir, Moshe Gaon, “oligarchs” whose names he is unwilling to disclose publicly, Ahava and a number of hi-tech firms.

    Incompetent superflack Ronn [sic] Torossian thinks Israel should kill “a thousand Arabs for every Jew they kill”

  6. The suggested “conspiracy theory” can be corroborated by the FBI’s apparently out of proportion interest over the matter.

    Fundraising irregularities or immigration cheating are quite common offences. One may wonder whether the vast interest, the resources allocated, being involved in a brawl with an “ally” state and its cooperating agencies and so on can be explained by the alleged illegalities alone?

    Unless there is something more. It may be the case therefore that it is the very intervention of a foreign state yet “an allied” one coupled with what is perceived as a systematic attempt by the Israeli top brass to influence politics and the democratic procedures by unlawful means.

  7. In several articles, the names of Bracha and Arbiv were interchanged. Here is a new article …

    Comptroller Shapiro: Ties between senior police commander Arbiv, Pinto were unethical

    (JPost) – The links between Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto and police Asst.-Ch. Menashe Arbiv, head of “the Israeli FBI,” were “an example of relations that were not prohibited by the law, but about which there were potential ethical issues,” State Comptroller Joseph Shapira said on Friday.

    Pinto, founder of the Shuva Israel Yeshiva network, is under investigation for wrongdoing in the US by the FBI in one case, may be a victim of extortion in another US case involving Rep. Michael Grimm of New York and is under investigation for possible involvement in bribery cases in Israel.

    Regarding the case in Israel, the rabbi has reached a preliminary deal with the Justice Ministry, having provided information regarding the investigation of senior police officials. He may eventually arrive at a plea bargain, depending on how useful the information he provided turns out to be.


    In 2012, Pinto was arrested along with his wife after he allegedly gave a briefcase full of cash to Dep.-Ch. Ephraim Bracha, who reportedly, either was recorded during the meeting or told his superiors about Pinto’s attempted bribery, or both. Bracha now heads the police’s National Fraud Squad.

    The Justice Ministry reiterated on Thursday statement that it had cleared Bracha.

    From “J”‘s link – Eric Cantor Tied to Rabbi Whose Aide Is at Center of ProbeAug. 23, 2012
    The same family name, is there a relationship with Ephraim Bracha?

    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. [WSJ – A Rabbi Gets a Helping Hand]

    Ilan Bracha is headquartered at the 725 Fifth Avenue office of his development company, B+B Investment Group

  8. Former FBI Agent Michael Grimm sought leniency for New York-based developer Tommy Kontogiannis

    (NY Daily News) Feb. 26, 2012 – In 2005, federal authorities began investigating Randy “Duke” Cunningham, an eight-term congressman on the committee in charge of defense funding. The probe revealed that two contractors had given Cunningham more than $2 million in exchange for help winning defense contracts.

    Kontogiannis laundered money intended for Cunningham through a real estate transaction. He also overpaid in buying a yacht from the congressman even though he did not “particularly wish to have a boat,” according to his agreement to plead guilty.

    Grimm, a former Marine, spent 11 years in the FBI. He resigned in in 2006 to start business ventures, including a restaurant and a biofuel company, before running for Congress in 2010.

    In his sentencing pitch, Grimm wrote that he met Kontogiannis through “mutual friends” while in the FBI, and that their initial acquaintance was “purely social.” Later, he told the judge, “the relationship merged” with Grimm’s work as an undercover agent.

    The New Yorker: FBI Indercover agent Mike Grimm and Josef Franz Prach von Habsburg-Lothringen (May 2, 2011)
    NYT – Congressman’s Business Ties Are at Odds With Upright Image

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