The AIPAC "Holy Land" trip offer
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The AIPAC "Holy Land" trip offer is John Kiriakou's account of being approached by AIPAC shortly after taking up the post of chief investigator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a job he held from 2009 to 2011.

A couple of days after he started, two men "clearly, obviously from AIPAC" came in and welcomed him to Capitol Hill. He replied that he had worked there before. They then offered him an all-expenses-paid trip "to the Holy Land", and Kiriakou's emphasis falls on the phrasing: "They didn't say Israel."

He declined, saying he could pay for his own vacations. The offer was pressed, it was all expenses paid, and they would take him to all the Christian holy sites, and he declined again: "Guys, I'm not taking AIPAC's money. I'm not interested."

A permanent presence

Kiriakou's point in telling the story is that the approach was not a one-off but a fixture of the building. "I don't think a single day went by where I didn't see those two. They practically had offices up there."

He reports the same arrangement inside individual members' offices, on the account of House members themselves: AIPAC representatives would come to the office every day and sit on the couch, and when constituents arrived to meet staff or the member, "these guys will get up like it's their office and say, 'Remember Israel. Israel, Israel, Israel. Remember.'" His verdict: "That's not the American way."

The electoral mechanism behind that access is set out at Democratic silence on the Iran war.

See also

- AIPAC
- Senate Foreign Relations Committee
- Democratic Silence On The Iran War
- Lobbyists writing legislation
