US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken sent Michael Ratney to serve as acting U.S. ambassador to Israel until a new one is chosen by President Biden and confirmed by the Senate, a decision that has been seriously delayed.

Ratney served as consul general in Jerusalem under former President Barack Obama from 2012 to 2015. In 2013, Obama’s State Department provided an Israeli grass-roots organization called One Voice with   $465,000 in grants. The grants went through Ratney’s office. Soon after the end of the grant period, OneVoice embarked on a political campaign titled “Victory 2015 (V15),” a campaign seeking to defeat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the 2015 March elections. Because of its tax-exempt status, OneVoice was legally prohibited to campaign against Netanyahu directly. One Voice provided significant financial support and overnight, V15 went from a neighborhood campaign to opening at least ten offices all over Israel. V15 was assisted by Jeremy Bird, President Obama’s deputy national campaign director in 2008, and national campaign director in 2012. The campaign’s goal was to elect ‘anybody but Bibi [Netanyahu]’ by mobilizing center-left voters.

At the time, Israeli law prohibited large contributions to political parties from foreign sources but since V15 was not a political party, the interference was considered legal. Israeli campaign laws have been modified as a result of what is now considered a loophole.

At the same time, the U.S. State Department initiated a program that brought leaders of Arab communities in Israel to the U.S. to “learn how to vote.” The Arab parties support left-wing coalitions in Israeli governments.

A Senate subcommittee report in 2016 found that Ratney had deleted key emails, in apparent violation of the Federal Records Act. In particular, Ratney was questioned about  OneVoice’s political strategy document, which stated the group’s goal was to “weaken Netanyahu and his right-wing parties.” He later told the Senate that he did not remember reading it. The Senate subcommittee could not determine whether Ratney had responded to OneVoice because he had deleted the relevant emails.

NGO-Monitor reported that in July 2016, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report detailing the use of resources developed with State Department funding to advance the V-15 campaign. The subcommittee concluded that One Voice did not directly use U.S. funds for its election campaign or violate its agreement with the U.S. government. However, it sharply criticized the State Department for not properly evaluating One Voice before grant approval and monitoring the organization during the course of the project. The State Department “failed to adequately guard against the risk of OneVoice using government-funded resources for political purposes… [d]espite OneVoice’s previous political activity in the 2013 Israeli election.”