Alleged Iranian 'Front' Represented by Mukasey Law Firm

Alleged Iranian 'Front' Represented by Mukasey Law Firm

ccokz 3:55p

Seems any Bush connected Repuke is 100% connected to known mideast terror supporters...can't be coincidence..must be just lifes ironies.

strange hes also -besides a well connected bushie- a new yorker- think of 911. I mean this building 7 didnt fall down due to an terror attack. so who pulled the strings?
---------------------------------------------

For more than 25 years, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement authorities say they have suspected the New York-based Alavi Foundation is a "front" for Iranian espionage and anti-American activities.

For more than 25 years, court records show the foundation has been publicly defended and represented by the New York law firm where attorney-general nominee Michael Mukasey is a partner: Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP.

The foundation says the firm continues to represent it.

Mukasey personally handled at least one matter in court for the foundation.

That case, a real estate dispute, began in 1981 when reports first surfaced that the foundation, originally set up by the Shah, had been taken over by the new Ayatollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The case handled by Mukasey was settled in 1984, two years after the foundation was described in the New York Times as being controlled by the government of Iran.

More recently, the Alavi Foundation was described as "totally controlled by the government of Iran" and "funds a variety of anti-American causes" in an affidavit filed four years ago by New York Police Department intelligence chief David Cohen, a former CIA official.

A 2003 Washington Post story said the foundation was also suspected of obtaining "data about U.S. technology" in violation of the U.S. embargo imposed on Iran following the hostage crisis of 1979-81.

At the time, the allegations in the Cohen affidavit and the Post story were strongly denied by another Patterson Belknap partner, John Winter, who said the foundation was "not connected to terrorism or exporting high-tech or spying on dissidents."

U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com that the Alavi Foundation continues to be under investigation and is closely monitored as a "front" for Iran. No criminal charges have ever been brought against the foundation.

The foundation controls a 36-story Fifth Avenue office building in New York.

According to its 2006 IRS filing, the foundation has more than $85 million in assets, including $6.8 million in cash. It says it distributed more than $4 million for educational and religious programs across the United States.

A person who answered the phone at the foundation said its president, Farshid Jahedi, had "no comment," and referred all calls to Patterson Belknap.

Neither Mukasey nor anyone at the Patterson Belknap law firm responded to written and phone requests for comment about the firm's relationship with the foundation.

Mukasey left Patterson Belknap in 1988 to become a federal judge and rejoined the firm last year.

There was no immediate comment from the White House, which has formally submitted Mukasey's nomination for attorney general.