Christie to lobby Booker on Iran, with billionaire Adelson's help

WASHINGTON -- Gov. Chris Christie vowed last month to lobby U.S. Sen. Cory Booker to oppose an agreement curbing Iran's nuclear program for more than a decade in exchange for relaxing economic sanctions.

On Tuesday, he will do just that.

Christie, a candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, is to appear at Rutgers University in New Brunswick to urge Booker (D-N.J.) and the two other undecided members of the New Jersey congressional delegation to oppose the deal championed by President Obama.

Scheduled to join Christie at the press conference are Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, founder of the World Values Network; Ben Chouake, president of the pro-Israel political action committee NORPAC; and Rabbi Shalom Baum of Congregation Keter Torah in Teaneck, president of the Rabbinical Council of America, the group of Orthodox rabbis.

Both Boteach and U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), one of only two Democratic senators so far to oppose the agreement, have received financial support from casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, chief executive of Las Vegas Sands and a strong supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who opposes the Iran deal.

RELATED: N.J.'s Cory Booker caught between Obama and Israel backers on Iran deal

Opponents, calling on the U.S. to reopen negotiations and increase pressure, have said the deal does not require Iran to dismantle its nuclear infrastructure and will quickly allow the country to build a bomb after 10 years. Proponents said that the monitoring and inspections will remain in place long after 10 years to prevent Iran from getting a bomb and the other countries won't agree to extend sanctions if the U.S. walks away from a deal they all negotiated.

If Congress rejects the deal, "it would put Iran in a position to benefit from sanctions relief without having to submit to any of the restrictions or inspections that are central to this agreement," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday.

As Christie seeks to become the Republican standardbearer, he has been critical of the accord, trying to link it to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"Secretary Clinton has supported this deal wholeheartedly," Christie told conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt in July. "This foreign policy is her foreign policy."

On the same program, he pledged to personally urge Booker to reject the agreement. "I don't think you'll see the patriots in New Jersey wanting to have their senator vote any other way but no on this deal," he said.

Booker (D-N.J.) is one of the highest-profile Democratic senators yet to come down on one side or another concerning the Iran agreement. U.S. Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-6th Dist.) and Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-9th Dist.) also remain undecided.

"I'm going to make what I believe is the best decision for the safety and security of our nation," Booker said in a recent interview. "This is too important a decision to be made by external pressures."

Nevertheless, NORPAC on Monday selected Booker as the lawmaker of the day to receive phone calls and emails urging him to oppose the deal. NORPAC is Booker's biggest lifetime source of campaign cash, contributing or raising $158,871, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group.

Boteach and Booker first met at the University of Oxford in England in 1992. They've been friends for more than two decades and Booker, who is not Jewish, studied Torah with Boteach.

"I'm not appealing to him as a friend," Boteach said. "We're calling on Senator Cory Booker, not my friend Cory Booker, to oppose this deal."

Boteach's group received $639,000 from the Adelson Family Foundation in 2013, according to the foundation's most recent Internal Revenue Service filings. The foundation also funded two organizations that oppose the agreement with Iran, donating $2 million to the Zionist Organization of America and $500,000 to the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, which runs the advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran.

Adelson and his wife Miriam, who contributed $55 million to super-political action committees backing Republican nominee Mitt Romney against Obama in 2012, also were major funders of Boteach's unsuccessful campaign for the House against Pascrell in 2012. They contributed a total of $1 million to the Patriot Prosperity PAC, a super-PAC that spent $938,789 on Boteach's behalf, almost triple the $317,116 he raised on his own, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Adelsons also gave the maximum $10,000 apiece to Menendez's legal defense fund. Menendez was indicted in April on federal corruption charges.

Boteach said that Jewish leaders across the political spectrum, along with most major Jewish organizations, oppose the Iran deal as a threat to Israel as well as the U.S.

"I don't think it's right to highlight Sheldon's opposition," he said. "When it comes to stopping doomsday weapons from falling into the hands of state sponsors of terrorism, it is not a partisan issue at all."

The other Adelson-funded groups applauded Menendez after he joined Charles Schumer of New York as the only Democratic senators pledging to vote no.

RELATED: N.J.'s Menendez will vote against Obama's Iran nuclear deal

ZOA President Morton Klein cited Menendez's "strong, pro-American, anti-terrorism position" and Mark D. Wallace, chief executive of United Against Nuclear Iran, said, "Americans across the political spectrum want elected officials to rise above partisanship and do what they think is best for our country -- and Senator Menendez has done that."

Besides Menendez, U.S. Reps. Donald Norcross (D-1st Dist.) and Albio Sires (D-8th Dist.) have announced their opposition to the agreement, as have all six House Republicans from the state. U.S. Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-10th Dist.) is the only member of the delegation so far to support Obama on Iran.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.

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