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Senators Warned about Suspect Named in Pentagon Leak Last September

October 23, 2024

As federal officials hunt for the source of an American security breach that compromised Israel’s impending counterstrike against Iran, an anonymous official in the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) leaked another tidbit to an Arabic-language media outlet. According to reports, a DOD official told Sky News Arabia (a joint venture between news outlets in the U.K. and the UAE), “The employee suspected of leaking the Israeli military plan to strike Iran is of American-Iranian descent and is named Ariane Tabatabai.”

The official reportedly added that relevant congressional committees (Intelligence and Armed Services) had been informed of the suspect’s identity.

It’s worth stating at the outset that this identification is disputed. When asked about Tabatabai on Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder responded, “It’s important to let the investigation run its course. To my knowledge, this official is not a subject of interest.”

Fox News Pentagon Correspondent Jennifer Griffin also took issue with the report, tweeting, “I have spoken with the person the reporter alleges was behind the leak of Israeli preparations and she is at work at the Pentagon today, has her security clearance, and has NOT been contacted by ... investigators.” (While this information clashes with the report, it does not directly contradict it. But, if both claims are true, that only increases the scandal.)

However, Tabatabai’s ties to Iran have been under scrutiny for some time. Just over a week before Hamas’s surprise attack last October, Senators Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on September 29, 2023, expressing concerns with Tabatabai’s involvement in a Tehran-initiated influence operation. The letter noted that Tabatabai “currently serves as chief of staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC).”

Wicker and Grassley alerted Austin that “an individual who allegedly served as part of an Iranian Foreign Ministry information operation [the Iran Experts Initiative] is currently serving in a senior Department of Defense position” and urged him “to take immediate action to ensure that the Department has not been compromised.” They also demanded information necessary for congressional oversight, including the date the DOD learned of Tabatabai’s participation in the Iranian influence operation, the date Tabatabai gained her security clearance or had it reinvestigated, whether Tabatabai had undergone any counterintelligence screening, which foreign nationals she had listed as contacts, and “special access programs” she had been “read into.”

“Last year, I called for suspending Ariane Tabatabai’s security clearance for her role in an Iranian info op. Amazingly, she’s still in her job,” tweeted Wicker. “The Biden administration didn’t take these charges that we made a year ago seriously,” Grassley said on “Washington Watch” Tuesday.

In other words, summarized Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, “You were on top of this over a year ago.” After a year of inaction from the Biden-Harris administration, Tabatabai has been named as the lead suspect in a potentially fatal security breach, leaking classified information about Israeli troop movements to Iran in wartime.” If, in fact, this proves to be true, this is a dereliction of duty. This should be something that should be on the front pages of every newspaper in America,” Perkins declared.

The tricky part is transforming that “if” into something more certain — either by proving it to be true or disproving it if it is false. 

At the moment, members of Congress are highly skeptical of the Biden-Harris administration’s willingness to own up to embarrassing mistakes, especially where national security and Iran are concerned. Only last summer, the U.S. State Department suspended Robert Malley, chief negotiator of the failed Iran nuclear deal, for “mishandling of classified materials.”

After more than a year, Malley has been neither reinstated nor fired — not to mention indicted — and lawmakers are asking questions about the investigation, what rules Malley broke, and who could have accessed classified documents through him. The most important of these questions is: was Malley compromised by the Iranian regime?

For better or worse, Tabatabai is closely associated with the Malley incident because of their close professional connection. Malley brought Tabatabai — formerly an academic scholar — into government employment in 2021 as a diplomat on his team trying to resuscitate the Iranian nuclear deal — which they tried to cajole the Iranians to rejoin by giving them the farm.

“Assuming that the rumors we hear that she’s involved with it — I don’t know whether that’s been confirmed yet — but if it has been confirmed, it’s highly dangerous to our country,” Grassley warned.

Whether the leak leads back to Tabatabai, the Biden-Harris administration has responded to criticism of her Iranian connections in an overly defensive manner that only stokes suspicions further.

When reports of her participation in the Iranian influence operation broke last September, the State Department and Pentagon both declined to comment on the substance. However, the Pentagon did respond warmly, “Dr. Tabatabai was thoroughly and properly vetted as a condition of her employment with the Department of Defense. We are honored to have her serve.”

Wicker and Grassley responded in their letter, “The fact that the Department initially responded to these latest allegations by rushing a full-throated defense of Ms. Tabatabai, rather than taking the time to ensure that our national security has not been compromised, suggests that you are protecting hiring missteps rather than prioritizing national security.”

In other words, Tabatabai’s ongoing access to classified material seems inappropriate because of her deep connections to the Iranian regime, whether or not she was responsible for the most recent leak.

“No individual who has had extensive contact with Iranian intelligence and diplomatic officials, and who has deferred to the direction of those officials before, should have ever been put in a sensitive position in the first place,” declared the National Review editors. “President Biden’s appointment of individuals who are too compromised to be trusted … is a scandal.”

“One thing’s for certain: personnel is policy,” Grassley insisted. “Biden’s soft-on-Iran approach has made our world less safe. And you can bet that Harris would bring more of the same.”

**Editor’s note: A previous version of this article quoted Senator Grassley, who mistakenly said he and Senator Wicker sent a second letter to the Pentagon expressing concerns with Tabatabai. As of Thursday, Grassley’s office cannot confirm that he sent a second letter.

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.



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