Tag Archive for: National Iranian American Council

Kamala’s National Security Adviser Tied to Islamic Republic of Iran

Nightmare. The media has all but declared Harris the winner of the 2024 Presidential election.

Her abysmal record has been scrubbed and Trump is never mentioned albeit to refer to him as a racist, white supremacist a-hole.

This massive psyops is the final act of a deadly coup.

Kamala’s National Security Adviser Probed Over Ties to Iranian Influence Network

‘The Biden-Harris Administration is no stranger to Iran accommodators, appeasers, and accomplices,’ Cotton and Stefanik write

By: Adam Kredo, July 31, 2024

Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) launched a probe into Vice President Kamala Harris’s national security adviser over his ties to an Iranian government influence network, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

In a Wednesday letter to Harris, Cotton and Stefanik asked the presumptive Democratic nominee to provide information about her adviser Phil Gordon’s “connections to Ms. Ariane Tabatabai, a senior Department of Defense official who was reportedly involved in an Iranian government operation to expand Tehran’s soft power in the United States.”

Gordon, the letter notes, coauthored at least three opinion pieces with Tabatabai that argued against sanctions on the Iranian regime. Tabatabai was outed last year as an alleged member of an Iranian-run influence network that reported back to Tehran’s foreign ministry.

Gordon’s connections to Tabatabai are fueling concerns ahead of the 2024 election. Gordon is likely to play a central national security role in a Harris White House, and his connections to pro-Tehran advocacy groups suggest that renewed diplomacy with Iran will be a top foreign policy priority for Harris if she is elected.

Cotton and Stefanik are primarily concerned about Gordon’s access to classified information and want to know if his ties to Tehran’s enablers might disqualify him from holding a top-secret security clearance.

Gordon, the lawmakers note, published pieces with Tabatabai “blatantly promoting the Iranian regime’s perspective and interests.” Those pieces were published after the time Tabatabai was alleged to be working for the Iran Experts Initiative (IEI), an influence network that included several American policymakers associated with the Biden administration’s former Iran envoy, Robert Malley, who was indefinitely suspended from his job amid allegations that he leaked classified information.

In a March 2020 article, Gordon and Tabatabai “claimed continued sanctions on Iran would create ‘catastrophe’ in the Middle East,” Cotton and Stefanik wrote in their letter. In another piece, according to the lawmakers, Gordon and Tabatabai “wrote sanctions could lead to new Iranian efforts to ‘lash out with attacks on its neighbors, and on Americans and American interests in the Middle East.’ Each prediction was as wrong, as it was biased in favor of Tehran.”

Gordon is also “closely associated with the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), another Iranian influence organization that allegedly collaborates with Tehran,” according to the letter. NIAC has long faced allegations of serving as Iran’s unregistered lobbying arm in America and was a player in the Obama administration’s self-described pro-Tehran “echo chamber.” Gordon spoke at NIAC’s Leadership Conference in 2014 and 2016, before and after his time serving in the Obama administration as a Middle East hand working on the nuclear agreement with Iran.

“The Biden-Harris Administration is no stranger to Iran accommodators, appeasers, and accomplices,” Cotton and Stefanik wrote. “Ms. Tabatabai remains gainfully employed in the Defense Department, helping oversee sensitive special operations. The FBI is investigating your former Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley for passing classified intelligence to Tehran and your Special Envoy Amos Hochstein allegedly passed intelligence about Israeli airstrikes to Hezbollah potentially as recently as this weekend.”

The lawmakers pressed the vice president’s office to come clean about Gordon’s ties to the pro-Tehran advocacy world and about the nature of his relationship with Tabatabai.

“When you hired Mr. Gordon, were you aware of his connections with Ariane Tabatabai, the IEI, and the NIAC?” Cotton and Stefanik asked. “Did Mr. Gordon undergo security screening and receive a security clearance when you hired him? Does he have an active security clearance?”

The lawmakers also want to know if Harris initiated an investigation into Gordon after “Tabatabai’s connections to the Iranian Foreign Ministry were revealed in September 2023.”

“Did Mr. Gordon admit and report his ties to this individual?” they asked. “Have you or Mr. Gordon met with other members of the IEI, including Ali Vaez? Have you met with Ms. Tabatabai personally?”

“As the Vice President do you support Ms. Tabatabai’s continued employment at the Department of Defense?” the lawmakers went on. “As the Vice President what specific actions will you take to address the issue of Iranian sympathizers, aside from yourself, within the Administration?”

In his 2014 speech to the NIAC, Gordon said that a “nuclear agreement [with Iran] could begin a multi-generational process that could lead to a new relationship between our countries.”

NIAC continues to champion diplomacy with Iran and praised Harris in 2020 for committing to reenter the nuclear deal after former president Donald Trump abandoned it.

In a 2018 op-ed written with Malley, Gordon argued that “Iran sanctions won’t advance U.S. interests.”

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

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Does Vice President Kamala Harris National Security Adviser Have Ties To Iran?

Senate Republicans are investigating Phil Gordon, the primary national security adviser to presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris, over his connections to #Iran‘s influence network, specifically DoD official Ariane Tabatabai and NIAC.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The IRS has Taxpayers Subsidize the ‘Iran Lobby’

And the double standard on pro-Israel and pro-Iran groups.


During the freedom protests in Iran, #NIACLobbies4Mullahs trended on Twitter.

It’s not the first time that Iranian refugees, dissidents and activists have denounced the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and accused it of acting as the ‘Iran Lobby’. But the over 300,000 tweets demonstrated the forceful opposition of Iranians to the regime and to the ‘Iran Lobby’. So did the marchers in Washington D.C. chanting, “NIAC is not our voice!”

“Iranians expect @TheJusticeDept to look into this hashtag: #NIACLobbies4Mullahs,” Arash Sobhani, a prominent Iranian-American musician and dissident, tweeted.

A Justice Department investigation of NIAC for violations of the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) is long overdue and has been urged by Senator Tom Cotton and other legislators.

But the pro-Iran group has also maintained a tax-exempt status with the IRS for over 20 years and that’s all the more remarkable considering the very different treatment of pro-Israel groups.

The New York Times has spent over a decade urging the IRS to investigate pro-Israel non-profits. In 2021, antisemitic congressmembers, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and Rep. Andre Carson, who met with Louis Farrakhan, signed a letter urging the Biden administration to crack down on the tax-exempt status of pro-Israel groups.

Treasury Secretary Yellen “must act to enforce US law and end these organizations 501(c)(3) status,” Rep. Tlaib tweeted.

If the Biden administration uses the IRS to go after pro-Israel groups, it will be following up on the work of the Obama administration which launched an unprecedented effort to shut down pro-Israel groups who were critical of its foreign policy including its empowerment of Iran.

In 2009, Z Street founder Lori Lowenthal Marcus applied for tax exempt status for the pro-Israel group. When the IRS refused to move forward, she was told that it “has to give special scrutiny to organizations connected to Israel.”

NIAC was never given this special level of scrutiny. Nor was the American Iranian Council, whose founder had run for the presidency of Iran and at whose events Biden had appeared.

In 2009, Eli Lake, then of the Washington Timeswarned that communications between NIAC founder Trita Paris and Iran’s UN ambassador “offer evidence that the group has operated as an undeclared lobby and may be guilty of violating tax laws, the Foreign Agents Registration Act and lobbying disclosure laws.”

IFMAT, an Iranian dissident site, alleged that, “according to NIAC’s own documents released during the lawsuit, the organization used to ‘defraud IRS [and] did not report lobbying.’”

The IRS however appeared to show little interest in NIAC and instead went after pro-Israel groups. While pro-Israel groups were asked to “explain their religious beliefs about the Land of Israel”, there’s no sign that NIAC has been asked to explain Shiite religious beliefs about Iran.

Before founding NIAC, Trita Parsi had created, “Iranians for International Cooperation” which admitted that it existed to “safeguard Iran’s and Iranian interests”. The same IRS, which had asked of a pro-Israel group, “does your organization support the existence of the land of Israel?” did not seem especially interested in whether NIAC supported an Islamic terror state.

Parsi then moved on to the American Iranian Council before founding NIAC allegedly in coordination with Hamyaran which had been created by the Iranian government.

The IRS however decided to go after pro-Israel groups instead. Five of these groups were audited at the same time even as revelations about NIAC were emerging. “Israel is one of many Middle Eastern countries that have a ‘higher risk of terrorism,’” an IRS manager argued.

Israel had a higher risk of terrorism because Iran was targeting it with a terror campaign. But instead of scrutinizing the terrorists, the IRS decided that the victims of Islamic terrorism were the ones who really needed investigating.

In 2018, the case by Z Street was finally settled after eight years of litigation.

Lori Lowenthal Marcus told Front Page Magazine that, “One of the excuses given to Z Street by an IRS official was that the IRS had to make sure we were not ‘engaged in terrorism’ because we mentioned ‘terror’ in our mission statement. The part of Z Street’s mission that mentioned terror? ‘We will not engage with, negotiate with or appease terrorists.’ Yet Z Street’s application for 501(c)(3) status was sidelined for seven years while Z Street litigated the IRS’s unconstitutional application of Viewpoint Discrimination against us.”

The IRS demonstrated that when it came to Z Street and other pro-Israel groups, it was willing and able to scrutinize, investigate and harass them. It has demonstrated the same thing with conservative groups. It is not however willing to apply that same standard to the ‘Iran Lobby’.

And the reasons may be obvious.

NIAC Action, its sister PAC, endorsed Biden and declared, “our long, national nightmare is almost over. AP has called the race for Joe Biden.”

Jamal Abdi, the executive director of NIAC Action, was one of Biden’s bundlers and claimed that its members had dominated phone banks and donated $385,000 to Biden.

NIAC Action had gushed that, “our long, national nightmare is almost over. AP has called the race for Joe Biden”.

“It’s an obscene joke that NIAC was given and retains the U.S. government’s permission to provide its donors with the ability to write off their tax donations to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s U.S. cheerleading squad, NIAC,” Marcus, the founder of Z Street, told Front Page Magazine.

In Iran, protesters are putting their lives on the line for freedom. And some of them are calling for a long overdue investigation of the ‘Iran Lobby’ and its influence over American politics.

NIAC Action’s recent endorsements include Rep. Katie Porter, who now aspires to the Senate, Rep. Ro Khanna, who is seen as the successor for the Bernie Sanders camp and a possible presidential candidate, and antisemitic figures like Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib.

After over two decades of neglect by the IRS, NIAC has gained unprecedented influence.

NIAC’s nonprofit status is evidence of a glaring double standard by the IRS and a national security crisis.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: J Street — Pro-Peace, Pro-Israel, Pro-Iran?

The J Street Challenge jpeg_ 2-19-14Charles Jacobs of Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) posted this hard hitting YouTube video part of APT’s  J-Street Challenge film, Pro-Peace, Pro-Israel, Pro-Iran?  The focus in this brief YouTube  is on the interlock between J-Street and the alleged pro-Islamic Regime lobby group in Washington, National Iranian American Council headed by Swedish Iranian citizen Dr. Trita Parsi.  Parsi has deep connections inside the Obama White House, Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, a former NIAC employee who is now the NSC Director for Iran.

You may have noticed the President’s remarks in a joint Press Conference with Italian President Renzi about  ‘creative negotiations over lifting ‘sanctions’ should a final agreement surface by June 30, 2015, a big if. After all, as Ayatollah Khamenei said this weekend, its “just a myth” that Iran is intent on creation of a nuclear weapon.

Breitbart News in a March 31st, 2015 dossier article on Ms. Nowrouzzadeh reported:

Found that a person with the same name has previously written several publications on behalf of NIAC. According to what appears to be her LinkedIn account, Nowrouzzadeh became an analyst for the Department of Defense in 2005 before moving her way up to the National Security Council in 2014.

A NIAC profile from 2007 reveals that Sahar Nowrouzzadeh appears to be the same person as the one who is currently the NSC Director for Iran. The profiles indicate that she had the same double major and attended the same university (George Washington).

Critics have alleged that NIAC is a lobby for the current Iranian dictatorship under Ayatollah Khamenei. A dissident journalist revealed recently that NIAC’s president and founder, Trita Parsi, has maintained a years-long relationship with Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif.

NIAC was established in 1999, when founder Trita Parsi attended a conference in Cyprus that was held under the auspices of the Iranian regime. During the conference, Parsi reportedly laid out his plan to introduce a pro-regime lobbying group to allegedly counteract the influence of America’s pro-Israel and anti-Tehran regime advocacy groups.

NIAC has been investing heavily in attempts to influence the talks in favor of an agreement with the state sponsor of terror. In recent days, its director, Trita Parsi, has been spotted having amiable conversation with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s brother.

The APT J Street Challenge You Tube Video has appearances by Lenny Ben- David, former Deputy Mission Chief of the Israeli Embassy in Washington and Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz.  Ben David surfaced a few names George Soros, and Genevieve Lynch.  Soros is a major donor to J Street and anti-Israel and pro-Islamic Regime related NGOs.  Ms. Lynch is a board member of both NIAC and J Street.  Dershowitz even offered to donate money to J Street if they could explain their support for lifting Iran sanctions and being pro-Israel in the light of comments during Iranian Army Day of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America”  or the comment by the commander of Iranian Basij paramilitary groups saying that “destroying  Israel was non-negotiable.”

Ben-David did his homework over the last several years and combed the J Street IRS Form 990 that lists major donors, the names of both Ms. Lynch and billionaire hedge fund mogul Soros popped up.

Back in 2010, Ben-David wrote this about Ms. Lynch interesting Middle East connections in a Jerusalem Post op-ed, “J Street Has No Shame”:

In August 2009, the Jerusalem Post first reported, “Muslims, Arabs among J Street Donors.” Among the donors, the Post article revealed was “Genevieve Lynch… a member of the National Iranian American Council board.

Lynch, the NIAC board member and a member of J Street’s Finance Committee, is listed contributing $10,000 in October. At one point last year, J Street and NIAC leaders worked together to block anti-Iran sanctions measures proposed by Congress. Belatedly, J Street changed its position and supported sanctions.

For more about Ms. Lynch, see here.  For more about Trita Parsi and NIAC, Read  NER contributor Michael Curtis’ American Thinker article, “Friends of Iran in America,” here.

Watch the APT J Street Challenge YouTube video:

RELATED ARTICLE: Communist Cuba’s Alliance with the Islamic Republic of Iran

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.