Members of the Biden administration, including former Secretary of State John Kerry and current special envoy on Iran policy Robert Malley, held backchannel meetings with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif during Trump’s presidency. They were undermining Donald Trump, according to a new report from the Washington Times.
These unAmerican Biden officials, who served in the Obama admin, met with the Iranians, which “allowed for the Iranian regime to bypass Trump and work directly with Obama administration veterans that Tehran hoped would soon return to power in Washington.”
Several sources gave the information to the Times.
One former senior U.S. official told the Times that the “underlying goal” of the meetings was “to devise a political strategy to undermine the Trump administration” and set the stage for a more accommodating U.S. stance towards Iran in anticipation of Obama-era officials returning to power.
The meetings reportedly occurred between 2017 and 2019. One of the meetings, between Zarif and Malley, took place after former President Trump withdrew from the Obama Iran deal.
Kerry publicly acknowledged meeting with Zarif multiple times early on during Trump’s presidency, which prompted Trump to accuse the former secretary of state of violating the Logan Act.
Though the exact details regarding what was discussed are not clear, one of the major objectives of the meetings was to lobby support for reentrance into the Iran deal should the next president be a member of the Democratic Party.
The Times report also notes that, in 2019, Trump sought to set up backchannel communications with the regime in order to defuse rising tensions, but those attempts were unsuccessful. Meanwhile, top Democrats were continuing to meet with Zarif.
Kerry and the others undermined the President to our enemies — and dangerous enemies at that.
WE’VE KNOWN THIS FOR YEARS
The USA Today reported in September 2018 that secretary of state Nick Pompeo slammed John Kerry, the former secretary for engaging in secret talks with Iran, undermining the administration.
He said he would leave “legal determinations to others” but slammed Kerry for engaging with “the world’s largest state-sponsor of terror” and telling Iran to “wait out this administration.”
Pompeo noted that Iranian-backed militias fired rockets into U.S. diplomatic compounds at the time.
The secretary of state harshly criticized Kerry for “actively undermining” U.S. policy on Iran by meeting several times recently with the Iranian foreign minister, his partner in the Iran nuclear deal.
Kerry’s meetings with Mohammad Javad Zarif were “unseemly and unprecedented” and “beyond inappropriate,” Pompeo said.
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