by WorldTribune Staff, April 17, 2024
Several operatives of a covert Iranian government-controlled influence network visited the Biden White House for meetings with senior U.S. officials even after the meetings had been exposed by independent media outlets.
Dina Esfandiary and Ali Vaez of the global International Crisis Group think tank, and now-Pentagon official Ariane Tabatabai, were exposed through the release of leaked Iranian government emails last year as being linked to a network called the Iran Experts Initiative, a project of Iran’s Foreign Ministry that helped push the talking points of the ruling clerics in Teheran in the United States and Europe.
A Washington Examiner review of White House visitor logs showed Esfandiary, Vaez, and Tabatabai visited the White House a combined 10 times between April 2022 and December 2023.
On Oct. 4, 2023, Geostrategy-Direct.com reported that the Iranian spy network, with the help of the U.S. envoy to Iran, was able to penetrate the Biden White House, U.S. State Department and the Pentagon in an effort to influence Iran policy in the Biden Administration and allied governments.
Along with support from the IRGC, the intelligence operation was supported by now-suspended U.S. envoy to Iran Robert Malley, according to Iranian government emails which were reported on by veteran Wall Street Journal correspondent Jay Solomon, writing in Semafor, and by Iran International, the London-based émigré opposition outlet which is the most widely read independent news source inside Iran.
Malley, who saw his security clearance revoked, was the Obama Administration’s lead negotiator in 2015 for the heavily scrutinized Iran nuclear deal that waived sanctions for Iran — the leading state sponsor of terrorism.
Malley, until 2021, led the International Crisis Group, the think tank that counts Vaez and Esfandiary as senior advisers. Tabatabai was a diplomat for a period on the Malley-led Iran nuclear negotiations team upon Biden taking office that year.
“There’s two things that are problematic here,” said Richard Goldberg, an ex-White House National Security Council member who worked on the Iran portfolio.
“One, it’s troubling that people with a track record of being very close to the regime and potentially sympathetic to the regime in Teheran have open-door access to the administration,” Goldberg, now a senior adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, told the Washington Examiner. “Two, it’s even more troubling that, to this day, we have no answers on the Malley investigation and where it’s leading.”
Republicans voiced their outrage after Tabatabai, the Iranian-born Pentagon aide who was reported to be a member of the Iran Experts Initiative, retained her security clearance late last year after an internal Pentagon review. She was dubbed “an Iranian spy” by Iowan Republican Sen. Joni Ernst and on at least two occasions in prior years had “checked in” with the Foreign Ministry in Iran before attending policy events and has urged the U.S. to align with Iran while breaking Israeli ties, according to reports.
White House visitor logs reviewed by the Washington Examiner list three entries for Tabatabai between January 2023 and December 2023, including a meeting with diplomat Laura Rosenberger in the West Wing. Rosenberger just recently departed the National Security Council, where she was special assistant to the president and senior director for China and Taiwan.
The story had until this week’s report by the Examiner been reported mostly by independent media, including Semafor, Geostrategy-Direct.com and WorldTribune.com.
“The Biden administration’s collusion with Iran is arguably the most ignored political story in the last two years,” a senior GOP congressional aide told the Washington Examiner. “There’d be wall-to-wall mainstream media news coverage if a Republican administration had been crazy enough to engage with, say, a Russian influence network in the way that the Biden administration actually has engaged with an Iranian influence network.”
Related: Analysis: Iran’s winning strategy revealed; It was aided by U.S., China, Russia, October 25, 2023
In June 2022, Esfandiary visited the White House on back-to-back days in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, according to visitor logs. Her point person was Stephanie Hallett, the deputy chief of mission for the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, a spokesperson for the International Crisis Group said Esfandiary “frequently meets with government officials, offering her insights and analysis.”
“Over the past decade, Esfandiary has met with officials from numerous U.S. administrations to discuss matters concerning Iran, the Gulf, and Middle East policy,” the spokesperson said. “She has also met with diplomats and officials from across Europe and the Middle East. The discussions included topics such as Middle East security, Gulf Arab relations, and Iran’s relations, including ways to address the Iranian regime’s regional power projection.”
Vaez, the International Crisis Group adviser, has visited the Biden White House at least five times, the Washington Free Beacon reported, noting that the meetings were likely with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk, the Biden administration’s Middle East and North Africa coordinator.
Report: Iran influence agents had continued access to Biden White House despite exposé added by Editor Two on
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