🚨Friday News Dump Alert! 🚨

The Biden-Harris admin is pretending to take major action against Iran by doing a flashy sanctions package targeting Iranian oil exports.

In reality, it's cover for them ignoring + breaking a law (the SHIP ACT) Congress passed in April. THREAD🧵

https://twitter.com/USTreasury/status/1844810004454400317

Treasury and @StateDept claim these sanctions are in response to Iran's October 1 attack on Israel.

That's not true. They were issued TODAY because Congress forced these sanctions through the SHIP Act on the Biden admin back in April out of frustration.

TODAY was the deadline.

WSJ: Rob Malley clicked on a phishing link sent to his personal email, allowing Iranian officials to access his information.

Then investigators discovered Malley had moved classified information to his personal email.

This raises HUGE questions: 🧵
wsj.com/world/middle-e… 1. First, it is DIFFICULT to *accidentally* put classified information on a personal email account.

Classified documents have prominent labels and can only be handled in classified systems.

All employees take regular classes on how to properly handle classified info.

THREAD: The IG report into how the @StateDept handled Iran Envoy Rob Malley's clearance suspension is mindboggling. HIGHLIGHTS:

1- No senior department leader set the parameters of what Malley was allowed to do post-suspension, but everyone claimed it was someone else's job. 🧵 2- Then, all the senior Department leaders aware of the suspension say that they thought someone else had already done so. No one did.

"Malley had little oversight prior to the suspension of his clearance, the degree of supervision actually decreased following the suspension."

THREAD: Once again, the Biden-Harris Admin is breaking U.S. sanctions law to give Iran a pass from sanctions enforcement.

This week, they've blown by at least THREE mandated requirements Congress passed (by massive bipartisan margins) in response to their appeasement policy.🧵 There has been a strong policy consensus in Congress for well over a year now that the attempt to return to the JCPOA failed.

Congress agreed that more pressure was needed on (at least) 4 fronts: human rights, oil exports, drone exports, and the nuclear file.

#BREAKING: Top Republicans wrote to Blinken about suspended Iran Envoy Rob Malley:

“We understand Mr. Malley’s clearance was suspended because he allegedly transferred classified documents to his personal email/cell phone” which were then stolen by a hostile cyber actor.



As @SenatorRisch and @RepMcCaul note, it’s disturbing that over a year after the top official for Iran was suspended, Congress still has to resort to backchannels to learn about this breach.

The letter was first reported by @joshrogin in his column.
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/…

1 - There’s a memo floating around some Hill offices with serious claims about weapons going to Ukraine – the thesis being that if the US keep giving them weapons, WE will quickly run out ourselves.

Putting my Hill staffer hat back on, a brief THREAD examining the claims. 🧵 2 – The chief concern raised is that Ukraine’s consumption of PAC-3 missile interceptors and 155mm artillery shells far outpaces US production rates.

The memo argues that we then curtail U.S. support & suggests we broker a deal to preserve our weapons for the Indo-Pacific.

A few early observations on Israel’s strike on Iran and its proxy targets:

1- Great to see Israel didn’t let itself be bullied by US/European demands at unilateral appeasement.

2- the Iranian regime couldn’t defend their airspace. Israel has freedom of operation inside Iran. 3- the Iranian regime didn’t have regional help shooting down munitions coming their way either.

4- Iranian officials are already downplaying Israel’s attack and claiming they shot down drones.
Good - means they’re trying to pretend nothing happened so their response can be weak

#BREAKING: UN Sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile and drone program have just now expired (7pm ET, 12am GMT).

Iran can now legally buy an ICBM from China or sell missiles/drones to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Russia.

https://twitter.com/polarisnatsec/status/1714391453269410106

Thanks to the 2015 Iran Deal, huge swaths of international sanctions on Iran have just ended. All UN sanctions on Iran will expire permanently two years from now.

Europe and Biden must start doing their job and snapback the sanctions.
jinsa.org/wp-content/upl…

Ok let's talk about what "Iranian sleeper cells" in the US look like.

This July 2022 video shows 100s of children singing an ode to Qassem Soleimani & Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei with lyrics "I will be your soldier, I will be your martyr."

It's not Tehran, it's Houston.🧵 The "Islamic Education Center" of Houston hides under the guise of a religious institution.

To be clear, it's not about Islam - it's about advancing Iranian propaganda. That's why they host an annual commemoration of Ruhollah Khomeini - the founder of the Iranian regime.

I'm not so sure Iran wants Hezbollah to launch against Israel (right now).

The most valuable function Hezbollah provides Iran is a conventional deterrent against Israeli strikes on its nuclear program: if Israeli strikes Iran, Hezbollah launches 150,000 rockets/missiles. (1/7)
2. North Korea has 6,000 artillery systems within range of South Korea's population centers, allowing them to decimate Seoul in hours of any U.S. strike on DPRK's nukes. That's a major reason we never attacked North Korea.

Iran wants the same deterrent.
rand.org/pubs/research_…

🧵Joe, this is misleading to say the least.

Here's the truth about those accounts - they were mandated under Section 1245 of the FY2012 National Defense Authorization Act signed into law by Obama.

The sanctions were designed so that as we cut Iran's oil export volume...(1/x)

https://twitter.com/JoeNBC/status/1711553401471799748

2) The price of oil wouldn't spike as we took supply off the markets. Yes, that was for US customers, but it was also to keep Iranian revenue limited since revenue = price*volume.

And it cushioned our allies by not spiking their supplies too rapidly. And we took two MILLION...

1. An anonymous senior U.S. official (likely Brett McGurk) said it was too early to know whether Iran was involved or planning/supporting Hamas' attack against Israel.

This not only contradicts Hamas' spokesperson's on-record confirmation, it ignores 3 decades of evidence.🧵

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1710808931767820378

2. Yasser Arafat said in 1992 that Iran had provided $30 million to Hamas.

In 1995, Clinton's CIA Director James Woolsey told Congress Iran had provided Hamas with $100 million.
meforum.org/251/hamass-for…

🧵I'm sorry Jen but you are simply unfamiliar with Iranian budgeting practices and how the Iranian regime and Hamas make decisions.

1. Iran normally has to allocate its limited foreign exchange reserves for food/medicine months in advance to facilitate trade flows. Not anymore.

https://twitter.com/JenGriffinFNC/status/1710735783139668150

2. Iran can now devote $6 billion of its unrestricted funds toward financial, operational, and logistical support for terror proxies including Hamas.

And it will do so through the Central Bank of Iran, which received a sanctions waiver last month as part of the hostage deal.

The Tehran Times - an Iranian state media outlet - has published a “Sensitive But Unclassified” memo to Iran Envoy Rob Malley explaining why his clearance was suspended.

The letter looks authentic to me. Indicates Malley also lied about not knowing why his clearance was pulled.

The fact the Iranians knew why his clearance was pulled - and that Congress did not until just now - is deeply troubling on many levels…

Congress needs to know whether Iran has access to all State Dept unclassified emails, and what is being done to fix that.

THREAD: I’ve spoken with career @StateDept Iran officials about the latest hostage/nuke deal with Iran. They are very upset and tell me the admin’s public answers are misguided.

“This is 100% a ransom payment...100% this will lead to more Americans being taken hostage.” 2⃣ On internal views - one told me: “There is virtually zero support for this hostage deal or nuclear ‘pause’ deal among the rank-and-file diplomats who have any history working on Iran”.

A couple tell me most @StateDept_NEA bureau leadership are concerned about the Iran file.

🧵THREAD: It has been over a year since Iranian state-owned airlines started ferrying suicide drones to Russia.

And yet in the next seven days, these same airlines will land at 12 airports in NATO countries - each flight in violation of U.S. terror and WMD sanctions. (1/7) 2⃣ Open-source intelligence shows 3 Iranian-owned airlines (Iran Air, Mahan Air, and Qeshm Air) have been flying regular routes to Moscow loaded with IRGC trainers and Shahed-136 drones.

These airlines and aircraft are all sanctioned by the United States - some for years now.

🧵From 2020-2022, 🇮🇷 Iran held multiple 🇬🇧 British citizens hostage, plotted to kidnap/kill a dozen Brits in London, executed a British citizen, and vandalized the UK’s embassy in Tehran.

In response, the UK more than tripled their trade with Iran - from £191M to £696M. These statistics come from a new release of data by the UK's Department of Business and Trade.

They show UK imports of Iranian goods increasing by 18% in 2022 - while Iran was slaughtering protesters and giving suicide drones to Russia for their invasion of Ukraine.

NEW: 6 Dem and 6 GOP Senators wrote to Biden asking why his administration is not funding the DHS program that seizes illegal Iranian oil and gas shipments.

That program had seized nearly $228M in oil linked to the IRGC since 2019. Treasury cut off funds to the program in FY22. 75% of the proceeds from those seized oil shipments used to go to victims of Iran's terrorism.

Now that we're not seizing Iran's oil, the #IRGCterrorists have even more money to support terrorism across the world.

Did you know that the EU has promised to end its arms embargo to Iran this October?

That UN sanctions on Iran selling drones and missiles expires this October too?

That all UN sanctions on Iran end in <31 months, perhaps permanently?

If not, this THREAD is for you.🧵 Back in 2006-2010, the UN Security Council unanimously passed six resolutions against Iran.

These permanently prohibited Iran from conducting all arms sales, uranium enrichment, plutonium reprocessing, ballistic missiles tests/development, and much more.

VICTORY. After a year exposing and shaming Biden's approval for a $10 billion nuke deal between Russia and Iran, the @StateDept has finally backed down and cancelled it!

But they are STILL giving sanctions immunity to other Russia-Iranian work... (1/4)

https://twitter.com/GLNoronha/status/1504179949200191495

As @Kredo0 reports, the Biden administration renewed all seven sanctions waivers on Iran's "civilian" nuclear program (a laughable term).

They modified one to explicitly cancel immunity for the $10 billion in nuclear construction projects. (2/4)

freebeacon.com/national-secur…

🧵Despite Iran sending 100s of drones and missiles to Russia in violation of UNSCR 2231, the @StateDept still refuses to support snapping back UN sanctions on Iran.

Today, @NedPrice explained why: Russia might veto the attempt to return UN sanctions. That's embarrassingly wrong. First, some history.

In case you don't remember, Joe Biden promised in 2015 that Russian or Chinese opposition to snapback wouldn't matter...don't take my word for it!