“Batman & Robin” actor George Clooney is scheduled to participate in a fundraiser for President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign in about a week, but one May phone call led some insiders to wonder if he’d show up.
Biden’s campaign has been running a contest for donors to win a trip to Los Angeles to meet Clooney, as well as actress Julia Roberts and former President Barack Obama, at an event scheduled for June 15, according to The Washington Post.
But Clooney had some officials worried that he might back out after an angry call from the “Spy Kids 3: Game Over” star over Biden’s public condemnation of the International Criminal Court’s issuing of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Clooney’s wife, lawyer Amal Clooney, worked on the investigation that led to those warrants, the Post reported.
ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan issues the warrants against Netanyahu, Gallant, Hamas leader Yehiya Sinwar and “two other top Hamas leaders” on May 20, according to the paper, seeking to charge them with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Amal Clooney was one of six “experts” that looked into evidence of war crimes in Gaza, USA Today reported.
Following the announcement of the warrants, she issued a statement saying that the experts’ decision was “unanimous.”
“I do not accept that any conflict should be beyond the reach of the law, nor that any perpetrator should be above the law,” the statement said. “So I support the historic step that the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has taken to bring justice to victims of atrocities in Israel and Palestine.”
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Biden derided the court for failing to differentiate between a nation-state and a terrorist organization dedicated to the genocide of the Jewish people, according to the Post.
“The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous,” Biden said in a statement. “And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”
The Post wrote that the Biden administration had early-on suggested that sanctions might be called for against some ICC members, but later walked that idea back.
Those hypothetical sanctions were reportedly part of what motivated George Clooney’s call to Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president, as they could potentially have been imposed against his wife.
In fact, after the House passed a sanctions bill against the ICC, the White House issued a statement saying that it “strongly opposes” imposing sanctions against the ICC because they could effect “court staff, judges, witnesses, and U.S. allies and partners who provide even limited, targeted support to the court in a range of aspects of its work.”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, unsurprisingly, disagreed.
“It’s alarming that the Biden administration continues to undermine Israel and now, 155 House Democrats have voted to give the ICC a free pass to target our allies and undermine U.S. national security interests,” he said, according to the Post.
Biden officials told the Post that they’re “willing to work with Congress” on some other way to punish the ICC for its overreach, but provided no specifics.
As for that fundraiser, Biden donors need not fear missing their opportunity to meet the star of 1989’s “Red Surf.” George Clooney is still planning to be in attendance, according to three anonymous sources cited by the Post.
