Free Republic

Senior director at the National Security Council (NSC) Robert Malley, who was dismissed from President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign team when it was revealed that he met with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, has been named Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf Region.

You may recall a stunning report from September that looked into an infrequently discussed Pentagon group known as the Iran Experts Initiative. In it, we learned about one of Joe Biden’s Iranian “experts” who was probably far too much of an expert in this field. Ariane Tabatabai is an Iranian-born aide and chief of staff to a Pentagon Assistant Secretary of Defense. She initially worked alongside the now-suspended Robert Malley on Biden’s efforts to restart Obama’s Iran nuclear deal. But the September report suggests she was working far more on behalf of the Iranian regime than our government. Still, she...

An Iranian-born Pentagon aide, who was revealed earlier this year to be part of a years-long, Tehran-backed influence operation, also sought to undermine the leading resistance group to the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to a new report delivered to President Biden. Ariane Tabatabai has retained her security clearance and position as chief of staff to the Pentagon’s assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict — despite a bombshell Semafor report in September detailing her ties to senior Iranian Foreign Ministry officials. But Tabatabai and founding members of the influence operation, known as the Iran Experts Initiative, were...

How badly have we been infiltrated? Consider the state of the Department of Defense. In late September, we learned that Ariane Tabatabai who had worked with the Iranian government and secretly promoted their agenda before appearing to testify in Congress was working as the Chief of Staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict. Now, Rep Jack Bergman is demanding answers over Yousra Fazili who worked for the Islamic terror state of Qatar and now works at the Pentagon. In 2022, she became the Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear,...

It all becomes even more egregious when inspected within the context of the Biden administration’s foreign and domestic policies. Many of the articles surrounding the atrocities of the Hamas attacks this past weekend have referenced the recent $6 billion “deal,” in which the U.S. gave this money to Iran in exchange for five Americans. It already seemed like the worst trade in history. But it’s more nefarious than simply unleashing $6 billion to Iran, a known terrorist state and the most existential threat to the free world. In reality, this one detail hyperlinked quickly in most articles is part of...

The Biden administration’s now-suspended Iran envoy Robert Malley helped to fund, support, and direct an Iranian intelligence operation designed to influence the United States and allied governments, according to a trove of purloined Iranian government emails. The 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, were published last week after being extensively verified over a period of several months by the two outlets. They showed that Malley had helped to infiltrate an...

The Biden administration’s now-suspended Iran envoy Robert Malley helped to fund, support, and direct an Iranian intelligence operation designed to influence the United States and allied governments, according to a trove of purloined Iranian government emails. The 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, were published last week after being extensively verified over a period of several months by the two outlets. They showed that Malley had helped to infiltrate an...

THE ALAVI FOUNDATION REGULARLY SENT FIVE-FIGURE DONATIONS TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION. An Iranian foundation recently convicted as a front organization for the theocratic regime in Tehran donated five-figure sums to the infamous Clinton Foundation. Last week, a New York grand jury ruled that the government can seize a building majority-owned by the Alavi Foundation, agreeing with prosecutors that it is a front group for the mullahs in Tehran. The foundation used the Manhattan skyscraper to garner hundreds of millions in revenue so it could supply cash for its “charitable” endeavors inside the United States. The Alavi Foundation rarely donated to...

Israel’s reported strike January 18 on a joint Iranian-Hezbollah convoy driving on the Syrian Golan Heights was one of the most strategically significant events to have occurred in Israel’s neighborhood in recent months. Its significance lies both in what it accomplished operationally and what it exposed. From what been published to date about the identities of those killed in the strike, it is clear that in one fell swoop the air force decapitated the Iranian and Hezbollah operational command in Syria. The head of Hezbollah’s operations in Syria, the head of its liaison with Iran, and Jihad Mughniyeh, the son...

d Hezbollah figures killed in an airstrike in Syria this weekend were likely planning an 'imminent' attack on Israel, security sources have claimed. Six Iranian army chiefs died alongside five Hezbollah militants after an Israeli helicopter fired rockets at a convoy in the Golan Heights region on Sunday. Among those killed was Iranian General Mohammed Allahdadi, as well as commander Abu Ali Tabatabai, who is known to have worked with both Hezbollah and Iran. Today Major General Eyal Ben Reuven, a former deputy head in the Israeli Defense Forces, accused the senior military figures of meeting to plot an attack...

NEW YORK — Christine Levinson's husband vanished while on a business trip to Iran. Five months later, she's going there to try to bring him back. The mother of the couple's seven children is planning her own trip to Iran in search of husband Robert Levinson even though she's been advised by the State Department not to travel to Iran because of the risk. "I am positive he is alive," Christine Levinson told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday from her home in Coral Springs, Fla. "If he were hospitalized or had been killed, we would have known by...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – A U.S. senator revealed Tuesday that he believes a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran nearly two years ago is being held in a secret prison there. Sen. Bill Nelson shed new light on the disappearance of Robert Levinson during a confirmation hearing for Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington. Levinson, of Coral Springs, Fla., was last seen on Iran's Kish island in March 2007 where he had gone to seek information for a client of his security firm.

Long after he vanished in Iran, retired FBI agent Robert Levinson reappeared in a video and a series of photographs sent to his family over the past year, transforming a mysterious disappearance into a hostage standoff with an unknown kidnapper, The Associated Press has learned.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A former FBI agent is being held by Iranian authorities, the Financial Times reported on Friday, but U.S. officials said they were still unable to verify the whereabouts of the missing American. Florida resident and ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson went missing while on a visit to the Gulf island of Kish in Iran early in March. His family has not heard from him since and U.S. officials told Reuters they do not have any valid leads. Diplomats fear the case of Levinson could mark a new twist in apparent tit-for-tat detentions involving the United States, Britain and...

Americans were stunned on October 11 when the Justice Department unsealed its complaint against Mansour Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old used-car dealer from Corpus Christi now in federal custody, and Ali Gholam Shakuri, a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force. Shakuri remains inside Iran. The pair have been charged with conspiring to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington, Adel Al-Jubeir. As disclosed by the Treasury Department, the plot was coordinated by Arbabsiar’s cousin, Abdul Reza Shahlai, a top Quds Force functionary whom the Treasury designated in 2008 as one of several “individuals and entities fueling violence in Iraq.” Shahlai was...

An American fugitive, accused of murdering an aide to the late Shah of Iran in the United States, was made an editor of Iran’s English-language television network in Tehran. Hassan Abdulrahman, who is wanted by the FBI for shooting dead Ali Akbar Tabatabai in Maryland, worked for Iran’s flagship broadcaster Press TV, which has bureaus across the world, including London. A Press TV journalist who resigned in protest over the channel’s coverage of the apparently rigged Iranian election in June told The Times yesterday that Mr Abdulrahman was chief editor at the head office of the network. The journalist, who...