Free Republic

The Department of Justice is investigating whether expensive gifts were given to New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez and his wife, including a Mercedes-Benz, a luxury D.C. apartment, money and jewelry, sources familiar with the matter said. According to sources, investigators want to know if the gifts — which would be valued in the tens of thousands of dollars — came from the owner or associates of an Edgewater, N.J., business that won a controversial exclusive contract to perform Halal meat certification with the Egyptian government — even though U.S. Department of Agriculture officials complained that the firm had no previous...

Colin Kahl opposed sanctions on IRGC, condemned killing of Iranian terror chief Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee are meeting privately on Tuesday morning to discuss their growing policy concerns about Colin Kahl, President Joe Biden's nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy at the Pentagon, according to sources close to the committee. Kahl, a former Obama State Department official, was a key architect of the Iran deal and has been at the forefront of a number of controversial moves, including, reportedly, the decision to remove a statement affirming Jerusalem as Israel's capital from the 2012 Democratic National Convention...

Hussein Mousavian headlined STRATCOM's Deterrence Symposium U.S. military leaders earlier this month hosted a former top Iranian official who came under fire last year for bragging about the hardline regime’s efforts to assassinate American leaders. U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) tapped Hussein Mousavian, a former member of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team who works as a Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist at Princeton University, to headline its 2023 Deterrence Symposium, a high-level powwow that brought the former Iranian official shoulder-to-shoulder with America’s top military brass. Mousavian’s appearance at the mid-August gathering, which came to light on Monday after STRATCOM posted...

The Biden administration has made a deal with Iran to release $6 billion in frozen funds in exchange for the release of five American prisoners. The agreement issuing a blanket waiver for international banks to transfer sanctioned Iranian money from South Korea to Qatar without fear of U.S. sanctions includes the release of five Iranian citizens held in the U.S. The Iranian-Americans include businessmen Siamak Namazi, 51, and Emad Shargi, 58, along with environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 67. Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed off on the deal late last week, but Congress was not notified of the decision until Monday,...

"Just this month Oberlin had to pay $36 million for defaming a local bakery with false accusations of racism. Oberlin has a track record of politically motivated dishonesty and can’t be trusted to give an honest assessment of Mahallati’s past. Our concerns have nothing to do with academic freedom or unorthodox views—they’re about Mahallati’s past and his apparent leading role in covering up the Iranian regime’s atrocities. I’d like to thank Ranking Member Foxx for her commitment to investigating higher education’s ties to hostile foreign regimes when Republicans retake the majority, "Republican Study Committee Chairman Banks told Fox News Digital....

A top official at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft is claiming the "Israeli lobby" in the United States is waging a coordinated effort to scuttle the Biden administration’s renewed diplomacy with Iran. Joe Cirincione, a distinguished non-resident fellow at Quincy, claimed during an MSNBC interview last week that special interest groups controlled by the Israeli government are surreptitiously working to undermine the Biden administration’s efforts to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. "There’s the Israeli lobby in Washington that’s very effective that’s pressing" against a new deal, Cirincione told MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan. Cirincione was likely referring to...

Former State Department envoy says conduct 'unbelievable' Iranian refugee and former Trump official Ellie Cohanim slammed John Kerry on Wednesday, calling the former secretary of state's backdoor meetings with Iran during Trump’s presidency "anti-American" and an attempt to undermine the administration’s foreign policy stances. During an appearance on "Fox and Friends," the former State Department special envoy called the Biden administration’s talks with Iran to reenter the nuclear deal "diplomatic malpractice" and urged them to stop making unilateral concessions and instead increase demands on the Iranian regime. "What exactly was it that John Kerry was telling them - just ignore...

In early January the United States killed General Qassim Soleimani, a top commander of Iran’s al-Quds Force, in an airstrike at Baghdad’s International Airport. The strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces. Seven people were reportedly killed in the airstrike. Following the death of Commander Soleimani Democrat Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) lashed out at President Trump for assassinating the Iranian al-Quds terrorist leader who was responsible for the deaths and maiming of HUNDREDS of US soldiers. It soon became apparent why Murphy was sooo upset with Soleimani’s death. Senator...

Earlier this month, House Democrats sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, urging sanctions relief for Iran. Among other things, they criticized "the designation of Iran's Central Bank under terror authorities," arguing that "the efficacy of sanctions is questionable." An organization long described as a front group for the Iran regime sponsored the letter and has embedded staffers with many of the letter's supporters in Congress, including Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). “Is Iran’s regime quietly infiltrating Congress?” M. Hanif Jazayeri, news editor at Free Iran, asked on Twitter. He pointed out that...

BESIDES BEING BILLIONAIRES and spending much of their fortunes to promote pet causes, the leftist financier George Soros and the right-wing Koch brothers have little in common. They could be seen as polar opposites. Soros is an old-fashioned New Deal liberal. The Koch brothers are fire-breathing right-wingers who dream of cutting taxes and dismantling government. Now they have found something to agree on: the United States must end its “forever war” and adopt an entirely new foreign policy. In one of the most remarkable partnerships in modern American political history, Soros and Charles Koch, the more active of the two...

A holdover from the Obama administration who helped broker the Iran nuclear deal continues to work in the Trump State Department as a member of the “policy planning staff,” according to her biography on the agency website. “Prior to joining the Policy Planning Staff, she served as a Director for Iran and Iran Nuclear Implementation on the National Security Council Staff from 2014-2016,” Sahar Nowrouzzadeh’s bio states. “Sahar also previously served as a Foreign Affairs Officer at the U.S. Department of State and a Team Chief and Senior Analyst at the Department of Defense.” In an October 2016, Nowrouzzadeh was...

Two high-level Iranian government backers, including a former Islamic Republic official and another accused of lobbying on Tehran’s behalf, were hosted at the Obama White House for more than 30 meetings with top officials at key junctures in the former administration’s contested diplomacy with Iran, according to White House visitor logs that provide a window into the former administration’s outreach to leading pro-Iran advocates. Seyed Mousavian, a former Iranian diplomat and head of its national security council, was hosted at the White House at least three times, while Trita Parsi, a pro-Iran advocate long accused of hiding his ties to...

The State Department’s top security officer is coming under scrutiny for playing a role in creating a special board that is investigating last month’s fatal attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. One of the State Department’s accountability review board’s key tasks will be to probe why the office of Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management, rejected requests for more diplomatic security in Libya in the weeks leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. Mr. Kennedy, a career diplomat whose portfolio includes being the top security officer, signed the memo Oct. 1 that set up the review...

Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-American citizen who helped establish a pro-Tehran lobbying group in America, has been arrested in Iran and imprisoned indefinitely. -excerpt- Namazi has been described as one of the “intellectual architects” of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group that has been accused of working in support of the regime in Tehran. He and NIAC Director Trita Parsi founded the organization as a way to continuously lobby for the removal of sanctions against Iran and to promote Iran’s foreign policy, while combating the pro-Israel sentiment in America, according to documents from a Cyprus convention...

A Dubai-based businessman has become the fourth Iranian-American to be arrested by Iran’s security forces and imprisoned in Tehran, several newspapers reported Thursday. Siamak Namazi, believed to be in his early 40s, was arrested earlier this month while visiting a friend in Tehran, a family friend told The Washington Post. It was not immediately clear whether any charges have been brought against Namazi. The friend asked not to be identified. The U.S. State Department declined to confirm Namazi’s arrest. …

Executive Summary The Iranian nuclear deal is a full capitulation to Iran’s terrorist mastermind Mullahs, and the latest in a series of betrayals of the American people and allies by the Obama administration. At the highest level of the administration, Barack Obama’s Senior Advisor, the Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett, prioritized rapprochement with the terror state. Throughout the process and negotiations, she had the backing of billionaire investor (and Obama-backer) George Soros, and his multi-headed network of tax-exempt foundations. Their efforts were driven by deep-rooted anti-Semitism and personal greed. Meanwhile, since the mid-1990s, a small but very connected Iranian lobby (funded, in...

When the world’s major powers struck a deal over Iran’s nuclear program in Vienna in July, it represented a victory not just for the Islamic Republic, which has now been granted international legitimacy as a nuclear threshold state, but also for a small but increasingly influential lobby in America, one which has long sought rapprochement between Washington and Tehran and now seeks to leverage a successfully concluded nuclear deal as a means to that end. This Iran lobby, publicly represented by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), has become a staunch institutional ally of the White House selling the Joint...

An anti-Israel activist who served as an expert witness on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in a recent terrorism trial was hosted for a meeting with senior White House officials, according to visitor logs released by the Obama administration and media reports.Michael Sfard, an anti-Israel activist who has reportedly been paid by the PLO to serve as an expert witness in terrorism trials against it, met in December 2014 with a senior White House National Security Council (NSC) member for a meeting about the Middle East, according to the logs and reports.Sfard, a lawyer, serves as the legal...

Between 2006 and 2007, at least twelve Democratic Congressmen agreed to meet with Iranian officials in the Ayatollah’s regime at the behest of National Iranian American Council (NIAC) President Trita Parsi, according to a report by Hassan Dai of the Iranian American Forum. Parsi allegedly solicited the help of current Iranian Defense Minister Javad Zarif, who was Iran’s Ambassador to the UN at the time. Zarif is now one of the lead negotiators for Iran’s nuclear program on behalf of the Islamic republic.

President Barack Obama is nominating a major fundraiser for his presidential campaign to be the next U.S. ambassador to Sweden. The White House says Azita Raji is Obama’s pick for the job. She’s a former investment banker who served as national vice-chair of finance for Obama’s 2012 campaign. She helped raise more than $500,000 for Obama’s campaign as a “bundler” in 2012. …