Israel meddling in US elections, not Russians: Philip Giraldi

A former American counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the CIA says Israel has for long been interfering in American politics and elections but US officials prefer to remain silent and incriminate Russia.

Philip Giraldi made the remarks in a recent article, headlined Is Pete Buttigieg the Israel Lobby Choice? , where he looked into an allegedly cyber warfare that recently hit Iowa and delayed the voting results of the primary caucus in the Midwestern state.

The results were published nearly 21 hours after Iowans cast their ballots, with officials blaming inconsistencies related to a new mobile app used for vote counting.

Confusion grows as delays mar Iowa White House contest

Significant delays in announcing the results of Iowa’s Democratic caucuses trigger growing confusion after Americans kicked off the first vote of the 2020 presidential race Monday in the state.

“Israel has been involved in American politics before, even if it is predictably never held accountable, and it has been suggested that Russiagate was really Israelgate based on what actually took place when shortly after the 2016 election,” Giraldi said.

“Israel may just turn out to be part of last week’s story of the astonishingly inept Democratic Party caucus in the state of Iowa,” he added. “The app that was developed to expedite Iowa’s voting …instead delayed the reporting of the results for nearly a week. It now appears that the app might be part of an operation being funded by Jewish billionaires with close ties to right wing Israeli settler groups who are opposed to Senator Bernie Sanders and supporting Mayor Peter Buttigieg.”

The former CIA official said the failed app that caused the problem was developed by a company called Shadow Inc., which was funded by billionaire Seth Klarman, who also is a major contributor to Pete Buttigieg’s campaign and also has been linked to former and current senior members of the intelligence community.

The Iowa Democratic Committee reported that the software that included the app was paid for by the Buttigieg campaign, “Pete for America Inc.”

Giraldi said the possible fraud or hack allowed Buttigieg to preemptively declare a predicted win on twitter even before any votes had been counted.

He further noted that the self-proclaimed victory had caused Buttigieg to abandon his commitment made last June that he would withhold aid from Israel if it were to seek to annex more of the occupied territories in West Bank.

“If Prime Minister Netanyahu makes good on his threat to annex West Bank settlements, he should know that a President Buttigieg would take steps to ensure that American taxpayers won’t help foot the bill,” Buttigieg said at the time.

Buttigieg took the lead among other rival candidates in Iowa's caucuses last week.

Buttigieg gets most delegates, Sanders comes in second in Iowa: Updated results show

Pete Buttigieg narrowly edged out Bernie Sanders for delegates from last week

Buttigieg was officially awarded the most delegates from Iowa's caucuses after a recanvass of 55 precincts was completed, holding a 0.1% lead over Sanders in the state delegate equivalent count.

Combined with Iowa delegates, Buttigieg now has a total of 23, whereas Sanders has 21. At least 1,991 delegates will be needed for any candidate to win the nomination.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir