Cruz on Malley

No one besides Menendez can call for hearings? Isn't there an Asst. Chairman? Is it any wonder that our government functions so poorly when one person missing can stop up the whole works?

What in the "wide world of sports" is going on out there. This from Semafor:

The investigation, described in a letter sent Wednesday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, also seeks information on Malley’s ties to an Iranian government information operation, called the Iran Experts Initiative, which Semafor revealed last month based on a large cache of Iranian government communications acquired by the Persian-language television channel, Iran International. One of the members of this initiative, according to the documents, is Ariane Tabatabai, who currently holds a senior position inside the Pentagon and was initially brought on to Malley’s Iran negotiating team in 2021.

“The administration’s lack of transparency is even more troubling in light of press reports about Iran’s direct role in this weekend’s horrific attack on Israel by Hamas and additional revelations that former Special Envoy for Iran (SEI), Robert Malley, and members of his negotiating team have had compromising ties to the Iranian regime,” the letter reads.

Who is Ariane Tabatabai? Here is the link to her Wikipedia page. The best part of her Wiki profile is listed under "Controversies":

After Tabatabai was appointed to her position in the US State Department, she was the target of accusations on social media.[10] These accusations about Tabatabai, that were later substantiated, first appeared on Twitter, accusing her of surrendering to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Right-wing media, including The Washington Free Beacon and Saudi media, were the first to report on these accusations, while left-wing outlets tended to either ignore the accusations or label them as "conspiracy theories".

In September 2023, a large cache of Iranian government correspondence and emails reported for the first time by Semafor and Iran International connected Ariane with the Iran Experts Initiative, an effort initiated by senior Iranian Foreign Ministry officials to bolster Tehran's image and positions on global security issues, particularly its nuclear program. She regularly met with high ranking Iranian officials and often asked for their guidance in shaping U.S. foreign policy toward Iran. These meetings even included vows of allegiance to the Iranian government. There has also been a call for a review of her security clearance by Senator Marsha Blackburn.

So, not only the State Department, but also the Pentagon has been compromised by this. Cruz may be holding back because this may go deeper then we think, I'd bet on it.

Rōnin (View Comment):

What in the “wide world of sports” is going on out there. This from Semafor:

The investigation, described in a letter sent Wednesday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, also seeks information on Malley’s ties to an Iranian government information operation, called the Iran Experts Initiative, which Semafor revealed last month based on a large cache of Iranian government communications acquired by the Persian-language television channel, Iran International. One of the members of this initiative, according to the documents, is Ariane Tabatabai, who currently holds a senior position inside the Pentagon and was initially brought on to Malley’s Iran negotiating team in 2021.

“The administration’s lack of transparency is even more troubling in light of press reports about Iran’s direct role in this weekend’s horrific attack on Israel by Hamas and additional revelations that former Special Envoy for Iran (SEI), Robert Malley, and members of his negotiating team have had compromising ties to the Iranian regime,” the letter reads.

Who is Ariane Tabatabai? Here is the link to her Wikipedia page. The best part of her Wiki profile is listed under “Controversies”:

After Tabatabai was appointed to her position in the US State Department, she was the target of accusations on social media.[10] These accusations about Tabatabai, that were later substantiated, first appeared on Twitter, accusing her of surrendering to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Right-wing media, including The Washington Free Beacon and Saudi media, were the first to report on these accusations, while left-wing outlets tended to either ignore the accusations or label them as “conspiracy theories”.

In September 2023, a large cache of Iranian government correspondence and emails reported for the first time by Semafor and Iran International connected Ariane with the Iran Experts Initiative, an effort initiated by senior Iranian Foreign Ministry officials to bolster Tehran’s image and positions on global security issues, particularly its nuclear program. She regularly met with high ranking Iranian officials and often asked for their guidance in shaping U.S. foreign policy toward Iran. These meetings even included vows of allegiance to the Iranian government. There has also been a call for a review of her security clearance by Senator Marsha Blackburn.

So, not only the State Department, but also the Pentagon has been compromised by this. Cruz may be holding back because this may go deeper then we think, I’d bet on it.

Yikes. But one more thing that’s not too hard to imagine. The with Obama’s blessing bit in particular is just too credible. State certainly acts as if it reports to someone else entirely than the ol’ USofA.

Robert Malley has been a Washington fixture for some time, and always supported the Palestinians. His skulduggery dates back to Clinton.

Mark Hemingway writes in the Federalist:

Finally, there was Obama’s embrace of Robert Malley. In December of 2007, the Obama campaign put out a press release listing Malley as a campaign adviser. Malley had previously worked on Middle East issues for the Clinton administration, though he was not well-liked by the Jewish community because his father, journalist Simon Malley, was a friend and sympathizer of Yasser Arafat, the head of the PLO terror group. Robert Malley himself had also written a series of essays for the New York Review of Books on Middle East issues that led prominent Jewish commentator and the former owner of The New Republic, Marty Peretz, to call him “a rabid hater of Israel. No question about it.”

After the backlash to Malley, the Obama campaign issued a statement saying Malley was not officially on the campaign and he was only providing “informal advice.” Despite supposedly not working on the Obama campaign, in May the Times of London reported that Malley had been ejected from the campaign’s Middle East advisory group after they learned he had meetings with Hamas. After supposedly being sacked from the campaign twice, shortly after Obama was elected it was revealed Malley had been dispatched to “Egypt and Syria over the last few weeks to outline the Democratic candidate’s policy on the Middle East.”

I confess I hadn’t thought much about Malley in the last 15 years, other than to assume he was up to no good. This summer I learned he was the Biden administration’s special envoy to Iran and that he had been fired once again, and this time it was serious enough that he lost his security clearance and was being accused of mishandling classified info. Only in the past few weeks have the real facts come into sharper relief: “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.” (Emphasis added)

Robert Malley got sacked twice by Obama for consorting with the Palestinians and Biden still appoints him special envoy to Iran? Where are the adults we were told would take charge?

Mad Gerald (View Comment):

Robert Malley has been a Washington fixture for some time, and always supported the Palestinians. His skulduggery dates back to Clinton.

Mark Hemingway writes in the Federalist:

Finally, there was Obama’s embrace of Robert Malley. In December of 2007, the Obama campaign put out a press release listing Malley as a campaign adviser. Malley had previously worked on Middle East issues for the Clinton administration, though he was not well-liked by the Jewish community because his father, journalist Simon Malley, was a friend and sympathizer of Yasser Arafat, the head of the PLO terror group. Robert Malley himself had also written a series of essays for the New York Review of Books on Middle East issues that led prominent Jewish commentator and the former owner of The New Republic, Marty Peretz, to call him “a rabid hater of Israel. No question about it.”

After the backlash to Malley, the Obama campaign issued a statement saying Malley was not officially on the campaign and he was only providing “informal advice.” Despite supposedly not working on the Obama campaign, in May the Times of London reported that Malley had been ejected from the campaign’s Middle East advisory group after they learned he had meetings with Hamas. After supposedly being sacked from the campaign twice, shortly after Obama was elected it was revealed Malley had been dispatched to “Egypt and Syria over the last few weeks to outline the Democratic candidate’s policy on the Middle East.”

I confess I hadn’t thought much about Malley in the last 15 years, other than to assume he was up to no good. This summer I learned he was the Biden administration’s special envoy to Iran and that he had been fired once again, and this time it was serious enough that he lost his security clearance and was being accused of mishandling classified info. Only in the past few weeks have the real facts come into sharper relief: “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.” (Emphasis added)

Robert Malley got sacked twice by Obama for consorting with the Palestinians and Biden still appoints him special envoy to Iran? Where are the adults we were told would take charge?

Don't a lot of people believe that Obama is actually in charge now? That would mean that Obama hired him AGAIN, after previously sacking him twice.