(Robert Jonathan, Headline USA) Republican leaders want answers about the sudden disappearance of Robert Malley, who had been the lead negotiator in the Biden administration’s attempt to rejoin the flawed Iran nuclear deal.
The envoy is now reportedly sitting home on an unpaid leave with a suspended security clearance purportedly stemming from allegations about the possible mishandling of classified material, the Washington Times reported.
GOP congressional officials accused the State Department of stonewalling the lawmakers’ oversight function, refusing to clarify, in particular, whether the agency properly complied with procedures for a key employee as specified by law and regulations.
“These reports raise serious concerns both regarding Malley’s conduct and whether the State Department misled Congress and the American public,” wrote House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, in a recent letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, as reported bu the New York Post.
The administration originally claimed that Malley “was taking leave for reasons unrelated to his government work,” Politico reported earlier this month.
It noted that, according to insiders, State Department investigators were probing as to “whether Malley could be trusted with classified material.”
Malley met regularly with Saeed Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, in the course of his efforts to drag America back into the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the Iran deal is formally known.
“That behind-the-scenes work seems to be at issue now, with questions about what sensitive information, if any, Mr. Malley revealed,” the Times wrote.
Former President Donald Trump exited the agreement in May 2018, citing information from Israeli and U.S. intelligence that Iran was violating the terms of the deal, which he had criticized on the campaign trail as a bad deal to begin with.
Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, along with a group his colleagues in the upper chamber, have called upon the State Department’s inspector general to explore the full ramifications of the official’s “mysterious departure,” including “how much access Malley maintained to sensitive information after officials suspended his clearance.”
Reports have surfaced that the State Department diplomat allegedly continued his work for a period of time after his security clearance was “quietly” suspended in the spring.
The unpaid leave apparently only kicked in as of late June.
The State Department confirmed that Malley was placed on no-pay status for unspecified reasons after the security clearance revocation, which the agency has not apparently yet confirmed, leaked to the media.
“I expect the investigation to be resolved favorably and soon,” Malley told Politico in a June 29 text-message about his security-clearance review. “In the meantime, I am on leave.”
The Times said the controversy “has plunged Iran policy into uncertainty and raised questions about whether the White House’s diplomatic outreach to Tehran might have jeopardized national security.”
In a revealing 2016 New York Times Magazine profile, former Obama White House advisor Ben Rhodes implied that he created a false narrative about the existence of a moderate wing of the Tehran regime to sell the original Iran deal to America.
Rhodes—who has a master’s degree in creative writing and is the brother of former CBS News president David Rhodes—also insinuated that the Obama administration bamboozled gullible journalists as a ploy to gaslight public support for the deal.
The U.S. State Department still designates Iran as a state sponsor of international terrorism.
