Hollywood producer Robert Simonds has purchased the Israeli spyware maker NSO Group to bring it under “American” control and hired Trump’s former Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, to lobby the president to remove sanctions on the firm so they can sell their hacking tools to US law enforcement.
Though the company was sold to a consortium of alleged “Americans” led by Simonds, the NSO Group “said Sunday that it would continue to operate from Israel under the full regulatory authority of the Defense Ministry, as it expands its global footprint and seeks to resume operations in the US,” the Times of Israel reports.
TEL AVIV—NSO Group, the Israeli company behind Pegasus spyware, says a group of investors led by Hollywood producer Robert Simonds has acquired a controlling stake in the firm, which has named a former Trump official to lead an effort to restore its battered reputation.
The company, which has faced lawsuits and U.S. government sanctions since revelations that its technology was used to spy on political dissidents, human-rights advocates, journalists and American officials, declined to disclose the purchase price.
NSO’s new executive chairman, David Friedman, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and onetime bankruptcy lawyer for President Trump, said he wants to use his ties to the Trump administration to help rebuild the company’s spyware business in the U.S.
“If the administration, as I expect they’ll be, is receptive to considering any opportunity that might keep Americans safer, it will consider us,” said Friedman, who splits his time between Florida and Israel.
This is naked influence peddling.
Hellbound and Down 