The official media mouthpiece of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan reports on Saturday evening on US politicians visiting, and paying generous homage to, King Abdullah II.
Related story: Pelosi, Abdullah II, Meet, But King Won’t Attack Trump’s Syria Pullout
Jordan harbors Ahlam Tamimi, the confessed Jordanian bomber of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem whose 2013 indictment by the US Department of Justice was unveiled more than two and a half years ago [“14-Mar-19: Two years after Federal charges are unsealed, Ahlam Tamimi remains free. How is this happening?“]
This latest visit comes on the heels of another Congressional delegation visit just eleven days ago [“08-Oct-19: Again: Jordan’s inscrutable US relationship“] In addition, Ms Pelosi has had several other meetings with the Jordanian king this year including in March [here] and in April [here]. Plenty of opportunity for a senior US political figure to express concern about justice thwarted, no?
We’re going to make efforts to see what Ms Pelosi said to Jordan’s absolute ruler today about why he demeans the extradition treaty his father King Hussein signed with the Clinton administration in 1995. We realize our track record in getting members of Congress to respond to questions like this is not very good. But we’re certainly not giving up.
Meanwhile we’re wondering:
- Do Congressional delegations to Jordan get briefed by the State Department before they take off?
- Do the State Department or the Justice Department inform Amman-bound Cogressional visitors about the years-long pursuit of Tamimi, a jihadist in the service of Hamas who is astoundingly a free-as-a-bird celebrity living openly, not in hiding, in Jordan’s capital, and the presenter for five years (starting February 2012) of a pro-terrorism TV show broadcast from Amman throughout the world?
- Does Ms Pelosi know who Malki Roth was, and what was done to her when she wa 15 years old?
- Does she know who Ahlam Tamimi is, what she stands for and where she lives? And why the FBI has her on its Most Wanted Terrorists list?
- Assuming she does not, will Attorney-General Barr and Ambassador Nathan Sales (the State Department’s Counterterrorism Coordinator) please brief her now? And ensure future Congressional visitors to Jordan get the same briefing before they leave Washington?
And this. Why are you learning about the Congressional visit from the blog of a pair of bereaved parents seeking justice for the on-the-run killer of their child, and not from the mainstream news?
UPDATE October 20, 2019 at 7:00 am
Speaker Pelosi’s website now names the members of her delegation:
- Ranking Member Mac Thornberry, House Armed Services Committee
- Chairman Eliot Engel, House Foreign Affairs Committee
- Chairman Bennie Thompson, Homeland Security Committee
- Chairman Adam Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
- Congressman Ron Kind, House Ways and Means Committee
- Congresswoman Susan Davis, House Armed Services Committee
- Congressman Stephen Lynch, Chairman, House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on National Security
- Congresswoman Elaine Luria, House Armed Services Committee
- Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(Source: “Pelosi Leads High-Level Bipartisan Delegation to Jordan“, October 19, 2019)
Tamimi and Jordan’s calculated and illicit thwarting of her extradition to Washington, overseen by King Abdullah II who appoints all of his country’s judges, are unmentioned in the media release.