A high-ranking U.S. official allegedly named as a suspect in the recent Pentagon leak of classified documents to Iran once worked on an influence operation run by the Iranian government. In September 2023, “a large cache of Iranian government correspondence and emails,” as reported by Semafor and Iran International, revealed that Iranian-born academic Ariane Tabatabai once operated as part of the “Iran Experts Initiative” (IEI) before entering the employ of the U.S. federal government.

At first, Tabatabai worked as a negotiator on the team trying to resurrect the disastrous and defunct Iran nuclear deal. But, by the time of Semafor’s reporting, Tabatabai had become “chief of staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC),” a position that necessarily included a high-level security clearance, as senators noted in a letter of consternation that went unheeded by the Biden-Harris administration.

Tabatabai’s connection to the recent Pentagon leak is far from certain. There is only “some pretty thinly sourced reporting that points to her” involvement with the leak, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) acknowledged on “Washington Watch” Wednesday, but there are “many questions that we have about Tabatabai,” regarding her previous interactions with the Iranian regime.

Those questions arise from “emails, which certainly appeared to be credible,” in Waltz’s estimation, which were reported on in September 2023. According to these emails, Tabatabai was recruited by Saeed Khatibzadeh, a Berlin-based Iranian diplomat and future Foreign Ministry spokesman, to form part of “the core group” of the Iran Experts Initiative (IEI) in March 2014.

What Is the Iran Experts Initiative?

As envisioned by Khatibzadeh, the IEI would consist of “a core group of 6-10 distinguished second-generation Iranians who have established affiliations with the leading international think-tanks and academic institutions, mainly in Europe and the US.” This is according to an email he wrote on March 5, 2014 to Mostafa Zahrani, head of the Tehran-based Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), which is affiliated with the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, six days before he reported Tabatabai’s recruitment. The IEI was “a quiet effort to bolster Tehran’s image and positions on global security issues — particularly its nuclear program” — Semafor summarized.

International Crisis Group (ICG), which in 2023 employed another former member of IEI’s “core group” offered Semafor a “significantly different understanding of the IEI and Tehran’s role in it,” suggesting that it was an “informal platform” that allowed academics to network with Iranian officials. From 2018-2021, ICG was led by Robert Malley, the lead negotiator for President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), before he returned to the Biden-Harris administration in an effort to resurrect it.

Last June, the State Department suspended Malley and revoked his security clearance over his mishandling of classified documents. More than a year later, Malley has not been fired, charged, or cleared. “Malley’s clearance was stripped, but yet we can’t get any more information than that,” said Waltz. “Biden’s Department of Justice and FBI put it in the ‘under investigation’ bucket.”

What Role Did Tabatabai Play in the Iran Experts Initiative?

It’s possible that different academics interacted with IEI in different ways. At least in Tabatabai’s case, however, emails show she “checked in with Iran’s Foreign Ministry before attending policy events” on multiple occasions and took direction from them.

On June 27, 2014, she emailed IPIS chief Zahrani in Farsi to ask his advice about two professional opportunities — one in Saudi Arabia and one in Israel. Of the Israel opportunity, Tabatabai wrote, “I am not interested in going, but then I thought maybe it would be better that I go and talk, rather than an Israeli like Emily Landau who goes and disseminates disinformation. I would like to ask your opinion too and see if you think I should accept the invitation and go.” The late Dr. Landau was “a well-regarded national security analyst and commentator” and “a staunch critic of the 2015 nuclear deal,” according to her obituary in the Times of Israel.

The same day, Zahrani responded, “All things considered, it seems Saudi Arabia is a good case, but the second case [Israel] is better to be avoided.” Then Tabatabai replied, “Thank you very much for your advice. I will take action regarding Saudi Arabia and will keep you updated on the progress.”

A little over a week later, Tabatabai emailed Zahrani again on July 10, 2014 to alert him that she was scheduled to testify before Congress on the nuclear deal. She asked his advice about testifying alongside two other academics who, she wrote, “do not have favorable views on Iran.”

Meanwhile, Zahrani and Khatibzadeh, the Iranian officials coordinating the IEI, “congratulated themselves on the impact of the initiative” and “boasted to their superiors in internal emails about the initiative’s successes,” wrote Semafor. Their operatives had so influenced Malley, America’s lead negotiator for the JCPOA, that he hired three of them — one at the ICG as he left and two as close aides. One of the aides Malley hired was Tabatabai.

One deliverable Iran measured was the number of pro-Iran opinion pieces or analyses its Western operatives got published in top-tier, policymaker-focused Western media. They placed such importance on such articles that at one point Tabatabai emailed Zahrani a link to an article she wrote, which was published in The Boston Globe.

In one email chain on April 14, 2015, Khatibzadeh “attached 10 separate Word documents … each referencing the media footprint of each IEI academic” during the week after a preliminary nuclear deal was reached on April 2, Semafor described. Tabatabai’s contribution to this media blitz included four published articles, including in the prestigious journal Foreign Policy, and interviews with the Huffington Post and the Fars News agency, a media group linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). These media touchpoints mostly served to bolster Iran’s position in the ongoing negotiations.

Based on the Iranian response, this Western influence operation was neither an informal networking organization nor a sideshow project of a zealous underling. Khatibzadeh emailed the media lists to IPIS chief Zahrani, and Zahrani forwarded the message to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and one of his deputies on the nuclear negotiating team, Majid Takht-Ravanchi.

To put this in American terms, imagine if a public diplomacy office in the State Department had coaxed academics in Russia to advance a pro-Western narrative as the U.S. was negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine, and the office reported the impact of their efforts directly to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the negotiating team.

In other words, the Iranian Foreign Ministry took this operation seriously and used it to manipulate their American counterparts in negotiation. Because this operation boosted Iran’s interests at the expense of America’s, it calls into question whether anyone involved in the operation — unless they had been completely hoodwinked — would afterward be loyal to America.

The eventual JCPOA was a travesty of diplomacy for the U.S. By its terms, it allowed Iran to get as close to a nuclear weapon as possible without actually obtaining one. And then it unreasonably depended on the good faith of Iran not to cross the line and actually obtain a nuclear weapon. Iran quickly broke the terms of the agreement and now is only a short leap away from obtaining nuclear weapons.

What Happened to the IEI?

In Iran’s 2021 elections, Ebrahim Raisi succeeded Hassan Rouhani as president and adopted a more belligerent stance towards the United States. He scorned the subtle, influence-based policy of the IEI and publicly criticized Malley, who the Biden-Harris administration brought on board in an attempt to resuscitate the JCPOA. All Malley succeeded in doing is freeing up millions of dollars in frozen Iranian funds which Iran used to launch a terror war against Israel in 2023.

Meanwhile, Malley brought Tabatabai onto his negotiating team in 2021, but before his suspension, she jumped ship to the Pentagon and landed a job with a highly sensitive security clearance.

However, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins questioned how she was able to obtain such a security clearance, given her longstanding relationships with Iranian government officials. “If you have a security clearance — and I’ve had one — you have to report all interactions with foreign officials,” he said. “How did they get by with this? Because it is very difficult to have a security clearance if it’s done the right way.”

“That’s one of the many questions that we have about Tabatabai,” Waltz responded. “If you take these emails — which certainly appeared to be credible, reported by Semafor and Axios — and these contacts — not just with family friends but with Iranian government officials — how are those not reported? And if they were reported … how is that allowed?”

Waltz expressed astonishment that this scandal has not received greater media attention. “If this were Russian contacts by a senior Trump negotiator, the media would have it running 24/7. Yet there’s just kind of a shoulder shrug,” he said. “Thankfully, she is no longer in the very sensitive position that she was in as the chief-of-staff of our Special Operations Bureau within the Pentagon. But there are a lot of questions.”

“If you just take the example of their lead negotiator for the Iran deal, Rob Malley, who is sidelined and had his security clearance stripped … take it in the context of all of that, [and] I think we have a real infiltration problem,” warned Waltz.

The consequences of Iranian infiltration were recently revealed last weekend when classified American documents were posted on an Iranian Telegram channel.

“When you talk about men and women being out there in the field, putting their lives on the line, when you have critical intelligence leaking from the Pentagon that puts their lives at risk, it puts the mission at risk. It compromises relationships with our allies,” Perkins protested. Waltz agreed. “Israel shares a lot of intelligence with us that [has] directly stopped attacks here on the U.S. homeland. We share technology with them, including the Iron Dome technology. And if that trust is broken, then people’s lives are absolutely put at risk.”

The Biden-Harris administration has not been forthcoming with information about Malley’s security breaches, just as they have not been forthcoming with information about the Pentagon leak to Iran. Nor have they adequately addressed congressional concerns over Tabatabai’s security clearance, or explained how, given her association with an Iranian influence operation, the American people should trust Tabatabai with their most sensitive national secrets.