Two Republican senators said Wednesday that the Obama administration has announced multiple FBI arrests of individuals in the United States connected to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, including “known terrorists,” to facilitate negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal. He said he had disrupted the operation.
This shocking accusation was made against Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) through a legally protected whistleblower complaint.
Senators on Wednesday presented unclassified internal FBI emails obtained from a whistleblower to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland showing attempts at “obstruction.” in the letter It also requested more records about the Obama administration’s nuclear deal negotiations.
“Records provided to our office demonstrate that, under the leadership of John Kerry, the State Department of the Obama/Biden administration is working to identify known terrorists, members of Iranian proliferation networks, and other criminals who provided material. “This evidence shows active and persistent interference with FBI operations related to the arrest of “support for Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs,” the senators wrote in the letter.
“The record also shows that the leadership of the Justice Department and FBI tolerated this until the Trump administration changed course,” they added.
The senators found at least eight instances between 2015 and 2016 in which the State Department forced the FBI to stop arresting individuals linked to the Iranian regime.
One of the incidents involved an Iranian national on the terrorist watch list, according to a whistleblower report.
In the email, FBI agents seemed deeply troubled by the fact that they were being asked to stop making arrests for political reasons.
“We are all desperate to ask the field to cease lay-up arrests,” an agent in the FBI’s counterintelligence division wrote in a July 2015 email to agents in the FBI’s Los Angeles field office.
“But as things stand, all we can do is sit back and wait until the whole U.S.-Iran negotiation process is resolved,” the counterintelligence official added. “We will continue to push for aggressive action, but we will probably lose.”
“Our hands are tied.”
The subject of the email was “Head Office Support.”
In another email exchange between FBI counterintelligence investigators from August 2017, one FBI official said there were “eight cases that we were highlighting as being on a regular hold.”
“The State Department has put the case on hold,” the agent alleged. “The FBI/DOJ/USG could have moved forward with the case, but the State Department has chosen to block it.”
While the names of those “missing” are withheld per State Department policy, the emails indicate that at least one person was able to return to Iran and that known terrorists were deported but not arrested.
“The FBI lost the opportunity to arrest this suspect, who is on the terrorist watch list, when he traveled to the United States in July 2015. The individual was forced to leave the United States immediately upon arrival,” one intelligence officer said in an email.
Senators Grassley and Johnson blasted the FBI and Justice Department leadership for failing to prevent the forced arrests.
“The record further demonstrates that the Department’s actions at the direction of former Director Kelly endangered national security, impeded FBI law enforcement efforts, and were contrary to the Administration’s stance on Iran,” they wrote. “Yet, under then-Director Kelly’s leadership, the FBI and Department of Justice [James] Comey and the then-Attorney General [Loretta] Lynch was unable to stop Kelly’s political involvement.
As part of their investigation into the matter, senators obtained email archives from Secretary of State Kerry, CIA Director Bill Burns, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and several other current and former U.S. government officials through June 4. We are requesting the submission of records.
The Obama Administration’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal) was signed by former President Barack Obama in 2015. It was repealed by former President Donald Trump in 2018.
