Ritchie Torres: Profiting from Genocide While Taking AIPAC’s Cash
August 27, 2025
Representative Ritchie Torres has built his career on being one of AIPAC’s most loyal foot soldiers in Congress. He has taken over $1.5 million from AIPAC and the Israel lobby, cementing his place in the AIPAC Hall of Shame. But now the corruption goes far beyond campaign donations.
New reporting shows that Torres isn’t just voting for Israel’s genocide in Gaza — he’s profiting from it directly.
A New Level of Corruption
In September 2024, Torres quietly purchased shares in Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and L3Harris. These companies are not just random stock picks. They are three of the largest U.S. defense contractors arming Israel with the bombs, drones, and weapons systems used to flatten neighborhoods, destroy hospitals, and kill civilians.
Torres had never owned corporate stock before. His sudden interest in defense contractors came precisely as Congress was preparing to vote on massive new military aid for Israel. And unlike ordinary Americans who have to live with the consequences of war, Torres positioned himself to get paid from it.
What’s worse — he didn’t disclose these trades until nearly a year later, long past the 45-day deadline required by federal law. That wasn’t an accident. It was concealment. Torres knew what it would look like if the public learned he was profiting off genocide, so he tried to bury it.
Voting for Profit
Torres’ investments weren’t separate from his work in Congress. They were tied directly to his votes:
💰 He voted for a $17 billion weapons package that supplied Israel’s assault on Gaza — a vote that directly boosted the companies he had just invested in.
💣 He broke ranks with Democrats to override a pause on 2,000-pound bombs being shipped to Israel. These bombs were headed for Rafah, a city crowded with displaced civilians. Torres made sure they were delivered, and his stocks stood to rise.
⚔️ He consistently dismissed calls for a ceasefire, insisting that suspending aid to Israel was the same as “siding with Hamas.” In reality, every bomb shipment extended both Israel’s war and the profits of the contractors Torres was now tied to.
⚖️ He sided with Republicans to sanction the International Criminal Court after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders accused of war crimes. Instead of standing with international law, Torres stood with war criminals — and with his own portfolio.
This isn’t just hypocrisy. It’s corruption in its rawest form: a member of Congress using his votes to enrich himself while tens of thousands of civilians are killed.
The AIPAC Hall of Shame
Torres’ financial interests only reinforce what we already knew. His top donor is AIPAC itself, which has given him over $1.1 million in career contributions. Torres has made a name for himself as one of the organization’s most loyal allies, parroting their talking points and attacking anyone who dares to call for peace.
But the weapons trades take it to another level. He didn’t just cash AIPAC’s checks — he set himself up to profit personally from the bombs falling on children.
It’s important to remember: Torres never owned corporate stock before these trades. That means he wasn’t simply “diversifying” or following a financial adviser’s standard plan. He made a deliberate, targeted move into war profiteering.
Why This Matters
The scandal surrounding Ritchie Torres is not an isolated case. It’s a window into how Washington works — and how broken it has become.
Lobbyists like AIPAC flood Congress with money to secure votes. Politicians like Torres eagerly accept the cash. And some, like him, go a step further by personally investing in the destruction they’re funding.
This is what happens when genocide becomes business as usual: lawmakers stop seeing civilians as human beings and start seeing them as “market opportunities.”
The American people have made it clear that they do not want to be complicit in genocide. They don’t want their tax dollars funding war crimes, and they certainly don’t want elected officials using their power to enrich themselves while children die under rubble.
Torres represents everything that has to be confronted and defeated: corruption, profiteering, and loyalty to AIPAC over the American people.
What Comes Next
Ritchie Torres has shown us who he is: a politician who votes for bombs and profits from genocide. But he’s also shown us something else — why we need to fight harder than ever to expose, challenge, and ultimately replace every politician who chooses AIPAC’s money over peace and justice.
This fight is bigger than Torres. It’s about whether America continues to enable endless war and enrich the people who profit from it — or whether we finally choose accountability, justice, and a foreign policy rooted in human dignity.
The people are watching. And we will not forget.
