The US Attorney General Merrick Garland should investigate Amal Clooney’s assistance to the International Criminal Court’s case against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli NGO Shurat HaDin has argues.
According to Shurat HaDin, the wife of Hollywood actor George Clooney and human rights attorney has violated federal law by illegally participating in the International Criminal Court's (ICC) "investigative actions" against Netanyahu for war crimes while she was on US soil.
Representatives of the NGO have sent a letter to Garland on the issue. The document was sent by attorneys Robert J. Tolchin of New York and Shurat HaDin President Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of Tel-Aviv. Shurat HaDin represents hundreds of Hamas terrorism victims, including victims of Hamas' October 7 massacre in Israel, in legal actions against the terror group and its financial supporters.
“The American law is extremely clear: no agent of the ICC can operate or assist in ICC investigative actions against Americans or their allies while residing in the US,” said Darshan-Leitner. “As President Biden stated, it is outrageous that this biased court in The Hague would attempt to prosecute Israeli officials as they battle the Hamas murderers, rapists and terror gangs in Gaza.”
The letter to Garland notes that Amal Clooney, at the bequest of ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, participated in an investigative panel convened to evaluate evidence of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and Gaza. The panel was tasked to review the legal analysis underpinning the Chief Prosecutor’s intended application for warrants against two Israeli leaders, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, as well as several Hamas leaders.
Ms. Clooney has spoken publicly about her involvement with the ICC investigative panel and boasted of her actions to assist in indicting the two Israeli leaders. The Shurat HaDin letter requests that the Attorney General subpoena the email, phone records and passports of Clooney in order to discover her whereabouts and communications with the Prosecutor’s Office in The Hague and determine if she acted illegally while on American territory. Clooney is not an American citizen.
After President Biden initially criticized the ICC’s actions earlier this month, George Clooney called White House official Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the President, to complain about Biden’s denunciation of the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. Clooney was afraid that his wife might be subject to US sanctions and penalties as the Biden Administration had initially threatened ICC officials. Clooney later wrote fundraising solicitation letters and appeared at a Biden Re-election campaign fundraiser on June 15th in Los Angeles.
“If Amal Clooney participated in the ICC panel investigating Prime Minister Netanyahu while residing in the US then she is the one that needs to be prosecuted,” said Darshan-Leitne. “She seems to be passionate about international law but pretty contemptuous of American regulations. George Clooney's efforts to intervene and interfere with White House policy on behalf of his wife while raising funds for Biden’s campaign is troubling and suspicious.”