From The Washington Free Beacon: The Biden administration appointed a recent lobbyist for the Palestinian government to help oversee the distribution of $250 million in U.S. foreign aid to promote Middle East peace, a move that ethics experts say conflicts with President Biden’s “revolving door” executive order.

George Salem, a Washington, D.C., lawyer, was appointed chairman of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Partnership for Peace Fund board this week. He will lead a 12-member board that will advise USAID on how to distribute foreign aid funding for “projects to strengthen people-to-people engagement between Palestinians and Israelis,” according to the agency.

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Salem’s appointment comes just three months after he ended a six-year stint as a registered foreign agent for the Palestine Monetary Authority, the central banking arm of the Palestinian Authority, according to federal lobbying disclosure records. He previously served as a foreign agent for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates…

Under the ethics rules—which the White House touted as the “most stringent ethical standards of any administration in history”—appointees are barred from participating in “any particular matter on which [they] lobbied, or engaged in registrable activity under [the Foreign Agent Registration Act], within the 2 years before the date of [their] appointment…”

Salem first registered as a foreign agent for the Palestine Monetary Authority in 2015. He said he would “assist the Palestine Monetary Authority with compliance with anti-money laundering and economic sanctions laws and regulations, and to strengthen the relationship between the Palestine Monetary Authority and the U.S. Government and U.S. correspondent banks,” according to Foreign Agent Registration Act records. At the time, he was also registered as a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates…

Prior to the lobbying work, Salem gained notoriety as a lawyer for the Holy Land Foundation, a charity that was shut down by the U.S. government in 2001 for funding Hamas.

Salem defended the organization against a civil lawsuit brought by the family of a 17-year-old American who was killed by Hamas, in which he argued that “if this case were allowed to its logical conclusion, legitimate U.S.A. charities could be held liable for unrelated acts by individuals not connected to their charities.” Salem withdrew as counsel in August 2002. The family of the victim was eventually awarded $156 million in the case.

Five of the Holy Land Foundation’s leaders were later convicted in a separate criminal trial of funneling $12 million to Hamas. They were sentenced in 2009 to between 15 years and 65 years.

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(Excerpt from The Washington Free Beacon. Photo Credit: Getty Images)