A top Harris advisor has disturbingly close connections with an Iranian-American scholar in the Biden-Harris administration who participated in an Iranian influence operation, warned Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) in a July 31, 2024 letter. The letter alerted Vice President Kamala Harris of her “national security advisor Mr. Philip 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.”

In 2014, Tabatabai was recruited as a core member of the Iran Experts Initiative (IEI), a brainchild of the Iranian Foreign Ministry that recruited academics in the West to advance pro-Iranian narratives, according to Iranian government email records reported by Semafor in September 2023. Tabatabai participated in this influence operation during the Obama administration’s negotiations, led by Robert Malley for what became the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a lenient deal that failed to restrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Iranian officials were reportedly thrilled with the impact of the operation.

In 2021, Malley tried to resuscitate the JCPOA after Trump scuttled it, and he hired Tabatabai for his diplomatic team. Tabatabai later transferred to a position as chief-of-staff for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC), a position requiring a high-level security clearance. In June 2023, the State Department suspended Malley and revoked his security clearance for mishandling classified information. Although more than a year has elapsed, the Biden-Harris administration has neither fired nor reinstated Malley, and they never divulged the precise nature of his mishandling of classified information.

Cotton and Stefanik expressed concern over the connections between Gordon and Tabatabai prior to their time in government employment. In particular, they wrote, “Before joining your office, Mr. Gordon co-authored at least three opinion pieces with Ms. Tabatabai blatantly promoting the Iranian regime’s perspective and interests.” Recall that writing opinion pieces that promoted the Iranian regime’s interests was a key component of the IEI, which continued until 2021.

It takes a substantial amount of agreement for two scholars to affix their names to the same article even once. For this to happen three times, the scholars must have reached substantial agreements on the subject of each article. They must also have developed a working relationship smooth enough that, after co-authoring the first piece, they were willing to cooperate again on a second and then a third piece.

The congressional letter provided specific examples of the kinds of things Gordon and Tabatabai agreed on enough to write down. “In a March 2020 piece, Mr. Gordon and Ms. Tabatabai claimed continued sanctions on Iran would create ‘catastrophe’ in the Middle East,” wrote Cotton and Stefanik. “In another, they 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.”

Academics are allowed to have their own opinions, and those opinions are allowed to be wrong. The problem here is that at least one of these scholars, Tabatabai, was reportedly taking secret directions from a foreign government, with the aim of persuading U.S. policymakers to advance that government’s interest at American expense. Gordon not only agreed with her in three separate opinion pieces but developed a working relationship in the meantime.

Tabatabai was not Gordon’s only pro-Iranian contact during this period, noted Cotton and Stefanik. “Gordon was also closely associated with the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), another Iranian influence organization that allegedly collaborates with Tehran. He spoke at the NIAC’s Leadership Conference in both 2014 and 2016,” they wrote.

Gordon is the national security advisor for Harris , a position that can lead to higher positions if the vice president becomes president. “Harris depends heavily on Phil’s advice,” said Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel. Jewish Insider notes that “both of the top foreign policy officials in the Biden administration — National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Tony Blinken — previously held the same job as Gordon when Biden was vice president.”

One consequence of Gordon’s pro-Iranian connections is that “Under a President Harris it is extremely doubtful that President Biden’s foreign policy towards Iran would substantially change,” suggested former State Department officer Brian Penn. “Her top foreign-policy advisor, Philip Gordon, has a lineage that extends from President Clinton through President Obama. Jewish Insider describes him as ‘one of the biggest boosters of the Iran nuclear deal.’ And keeping along the same track is always easier than making a radical change in policy.”

Indeed, Tabatabai herself seems to have influence within the Biden White House, even after Semafor reported her connection to the Iranian regime. White House visitor logs show that Tabatabai visited the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which sits next door to the West Wing, eight times from November 2023 through April 2024, participating in “multiple meetings organized by the White House’s Presidential Personnel Office, which is responsible for recruiting and vetting scores of nominees across the government,” reported the Washington Free Beacon.

“This comes in the context of an administration that has focused its strategy on … pressuring our greatest ally, Israel, and really giving our biggest enemy in the region, Iran, a pass,” Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) stated on “Washington Watch” Wednesday. Iran “has suffered no consequences for attacking our soldiers in Iraq, for attacking our ships in the Red Sea, for the horrendous acts [of the] October 7th massacre, for launching ballistic missiles not once but twice directly from its soil. And they have just gotten kind of bye after bye from this administration.”

It also comes in the context of a potentially fatal leak, in which classified U.S. documents detailing Israeli war preparations were posted to an Iranian Telegram channel. An anonymous official reportedly named Tabatabai as a suspect in the leak investigation, although that has not been confirmed.

Iranian infiltration into the Biden-Harris administration further isolates Israel because it jeopardizes their communication with this administration, warned Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. And, “if Israel can’t communicate with us, this puts them basically acting alone,” he said.

“Thankfully [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu did not listen to Biden and Harris,” responded Waltz, “because, if they had, Hezbollah would still be roaring and attacking. Hamas would be plotting more October 7th [attacks]. [Hezbollah chief Hassan] Nasrallah would be alive. [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar would be alive. And, right now, the [Iranian] ayatollah is literally in hiding, not because of Biden, but because of Bibi. That’s how you reestablish stability and peace.”

With Israel performing so splendidly against Iran’s terror network, “maybe we can ride their coattails to a greater global stability,” Perkins suggested. Harris advisor Philip Gordon would likely offer different advice.