Category Archives: Middle East

Prisoner Swap with Iran, So Far 4 for 7 and Counting

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1:35 PM, EST Update:

The names of those who had Interpol red notices lifted by the State Department, the Department of Justice and the White House:

Mohammad Abbas Mohammadi, Kurosh Taherkhani, Sajjad Farhadi, Seyed Ahmad Abtahi, Gholamreza Mahmudi, Hamid Arabnezhad, Ali Mo’attar, Mohammad Ali She’rbaaf, Amin Ravan, Behruz Dowlatzadeh, Said Jamili, Jalal Salami, Matin Sadeghi, Alireza Mo’azami-Gudarzi.

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Today, Barack Obama issued at least 3 pardons to Iranians in U.S. prisoners for violating Iran sanctions. Likely, there are other prisoners that will be part of a future swap in coming days.

Switzerland facilitated Iran-U.S. prisoner swap, Iran’s UN ambassador tells state TV.

Confirmed: Hamid Arabnejad, CEO of Mahan, which delivers weapons to Assad daily, to be taken off Interpol list as part of swap.

12:46p

America does not do prisoner swaps, at least until Barack Obama, where it has become and epidemic. Further, we still don’t know the status of former DEA/FBI operative Robert Levinson who was last heard from in 2011 and was kidnapped on Kish Island, as the Iranians continue to say they never heard of him.

The State Department has dropped Interpol ‘red notices’ on several others, those names have not been formally announced but several included those involved in the AIMA bombing in Buenos Aries, Argentina.

August, 2015: BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — An international arrest warrant for Iran’s former defense minister in the AMIA Jewish center bombing will not be lifted under the Iran nuclear deal, U.S. officials said.

Ahmad Vahidi is still being sought in connection with the deadly 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires center and nothing will change under the agreement between Iran and the world powers reached last month, according to the State Department.

“Nothing in the recently concluded Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action, or JCPOA, on Iran’s nuclear program has an impact on or removes the Red Notice for General Vahidi issued by Interpol, in relation to the 1994‎ bombing in Argentina,” the State Department said in a statement Friday, two days after Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman asked Secretary of State John Kerry about Vahidi’s status in a letter. “And we continue to urge the international community and Argentine authorities to do whatever is necessary to hold the AMIA bombers accountable for that atrocity.

Along with Vahidi, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps and its officials remain sanctioned in the United States because they were listed for reasons outside the scope of the agreement, the statement said.

Timerman’s letter also was sent to European Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that “the E.U.’s planned delisting of Tehran’s former minister of defense, retired Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, is among a group of Iranian military officers, nuclear scientists and defense institutions set to be rehabilitated internationally in the wake of the nuclear accord.”

The State Department added in its response that “our secondary sanctions will also stay in force, which means that foreign banks and companies could be exposed to sanctions if they engage in transactions with these listed individuals.”

Since Vahidi is not listed under any nuclear-related activities, the State Department said, he will remain on the Interpol list for eight more years.

Timerman, who is Jewish, in February asked Kerry to include the AMIA attack in the negotiations with Iran, but the attack was not part of the talks.

March of 2015:

Interpol won’t lift warrants for 6 Iranians in AMIA bombing

Arrest orders to remain active despite Tehran’s participation in probe of 1994 terror attack

The above position of not lifting the red notices has been declared null and void by Barack Obama as of January 16, 2016 in the larger mission of additional prisoner swaps.

VIENNA (AP) — The latest developments as Iran and world powers prepare to implement a landmark deal reached last year to curb Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions (all times local).

5:30 p.m.

U.S. and Iranian officials say Iran is releasing four detained Iranian-Americans in exchange for seven Iranians held or charged in the United States.

The major diplomatic breakthrough was announced Saturday as the implementation of a landmark nuclear deal appeared imminent.

U.S. officials say the four Americans, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, former Marine Amir Hekmati and pastor Saeed Abidini, were to be flown from Iran to Switzerland on a Swiss plane and then brought to a U.S. military base in Landstuhl, Germany, for medical treatment.

In return, the U.S. will either pardon or drop charges against seven Iranians — six of whom are dual citizens — accused or convicted of violating U.S. sanctions. The U.S. will also drop Interpol “red notices” — essentially arrest warrants — on a handful of Iranian fugitives it has sought.

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5:10 p.m.

There are conflicting reports about the identities of the four prisoners released by Iran.

Iranian state TV on Saturday announced that four prisoners holding dual Iranian-American citizenship were released, without elaborating. The announcement fueled speculation that Jason Rezaian, the jailed Washington Post bureau chief, was among them.

An official close to Iran’s judiciary told The Associated Press that the prisoners included Rezaian, former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati and pastor Saeed Abedini. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

It was unclear who the fourth person was. Iranian state TV later reported it was Siamak Namazi, the son of a politician from the era of the shah, while the official IRNA news agency said it was Nosratollah Khosravi. The accounts could not be reconciled immediately.

— Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Iran

4 p.m

A source close to Iran’s judiciary is telling The Associated Press that four Iranian-Americans have been freed from prison in Iran: Washington Post bureau chief Jason Rezaian as well as Amir Hekmati, Saeed Abedini and Siamak Namazi.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the four were freed Saturday in exchange for the release of seven Iranians held in U.S. prisons. He didn’t name the Iranians but said the seven have already arrived in Tehran.

He says “authorities at the top had agreed to free the four Iranian-Americans only after the Iranian prisoners land in Tehran.”

— Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran

3:45 p.m.

A source close to Iran’s judiciary is confirming to The Associated Press that jailed Washington Post bureau chief Jason Rezaian is one of four dual-national prisoners freed today by Iran’s government.

Iranian state television announced the release of the four prisoners on Saturday but gave no names.

The source spoke on condition of anonymity since he was not authorized to publicly speak to the media.

— Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran

3:30 p.m.

Iranian state television says the government has freed four dual-nationality prisoners.

The report Saturday did not identify the prisoners but it comes amid speculation that jailed Washington Post bureau chief Jason Rezaian, a dual Iran-U.S. citizen convicted of espionage in a closed-door trial in 2015, could be among them.

The report by the semi-official ISNA news agency quotes a statement from the Tehran prosecutor’s office as saying the inmates were freed “within the framework of exchanging prisoners,” without elaborating.

The U.S. would not immediately confirm the Iranian report. But the family of one of the U.S prisoners received unofficial word from Iran that their relative was being released today, according to a person close to that family.

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11:20 a.m.

The EU’s top diplomat has met with Iran’s foreign minister for talks on implementing the nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers, as the U.N. atomic agency works on a report certifying that Iran has met its commitments under the accord.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will join Federica Mogherini of the European Union and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Vienna, the headquarters of the U.N’s International Atomic Energy Agency, later Saturday.

IAEA certification that Iran is honoring its obligations would trigger sanctions relief for Iran worth an estimated $100 billion.

Under the July 14 deal between Iran and six world powers, Tehran Iran agreed to crimp programs it could use to make nuclear weapons in return for an end to international nuclear-related sanctions

Iran says it has no interest in such arms.

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11:15 a.m.

Iranian hard-liners are accusing moderate President Hassan Rouhani of “burying” the country’s nuclear program as Tehran and world powers are on the verge of implementing a historic nuclear accord.

Under the front-page headline “Nuclear Burial,” Hard-line daily Vatan-e-Emrooz on Saturday criticized the removal of the core of Iran’s only heavy water reactor, which was filled in with cement earlier this week as one of the final steps under the agreement.

The Javan daily says filling in the reactor is “hurting national pride.”

It says the Iranian people hope that the “bitterness of filling the Arak reactor with cement will be accompanied with the sweetness of filling their table,” referring to the lifting of crippling international sanctions.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif earlier said that the imminent release of a U.N. compliance report would trigger “Implementation Day,” with Iran receiving billions in sanctions relief in return for limiting its nuclear activities.

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10:40 a.m.

Iran’s foreign minister says an imminent compliance report by the U.N. nuclear agency will trigger the implementation of the historic nuclear accord reached with world powers last year, bringing a “good day” for Iran.

Mohammad Javad Zarif says the report will mark “Implementation Day,” when world powers provide Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for it curbing its nuclear program.

Speaking in Vienna on Saturday, where he was to meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and top EU diplomat Federica Mogherini, Zarif called for greater cooperation to fight the “terrorism and extremism” that has engulfed the Middle East. His comments were broadcast on state TV.

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WaPo: The full story of Jason Rezaian: On July 22, 2014, Iranian authorities crashed into the Tehran home of Washington Post Iran correspondent Jason Rezaian and arrested him and his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, also a journalist. Rezaian was taken to Iran’s infamous Evin Prison, where he was put in solitary confinement for months, without a word of explanation to his family or to the outside world. Salehi, an Iranian citizen, was released on bail last fall.

Iran has said it will release Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, according to Iranian media.

Along with Rezaian, three other detained Americans are being released in a swap for seven people imprisoned or charged by the United States.

Rezaian’s incarceration was the longest, by far, for a Western journalist in Iran since the 1979 revolution that brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power.

Throughout his captivity, the 39-year-old California native has been subjected to grueling interrogations and repeated deprivations, forced to stay for weeks in a bare cell without a mattress or even a toilet, family members said after they were allowed to speak with him.

Rezaian has been periodically deprived of medicine for his high blood pressure, family members said, and his physical condition has deteriorated, with dramatic weight loss, back pain and chronic eye and groin infections.

Top U.S. officials, including President Obama and Secretary of State John F. Kerry, have repeatedly demanded Rezaian’s release, echoing similar calls by other Western governments, human rights groups and Washington Post leadership, which has asserted the correspondent’s innocence.

July 25, 2014 : Iran confirms that Rezaian has been detained.

July 29, 2014: Wendy Sherman, undersecretary of state for political affairs, tells the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the United States formally called for the immediate release of Rezaian, his wife and two other U.S. citizens detained the same night.

Aug. 6, 2014 : Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Hassan Ghashghavi, says the detention is “an internal matter” and says the country does not acknowledge Rezaian’s U.S. citizenship.

Aug. 20, 2014:A photojournalist who worked with Rezaian and Salehi and also was detained is released on bail.

Sept. 17, 2014: In an interview with NPR, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says Rezaian is “facing interrogation in Iran for what he has done as an Iranian citizen” but declines to name any crime. He says Iran’s judiciary “has no obligation to explain to the United States why it is detaining one of [Iran’s own] citizens.”

Douglas Jehl, The Post’s foreign editor, responds in a statement that Rezaian and his wife are “fully accredited journalists, and we remain mystified by their detention and deeply concerned about their welfare.”

Ali Rezaian, Jason’s older brother, says in a statement: “Neither I nor my mother have been permitted any communication with Jason. We remain concerned about their health and implore the Iranian authorities to release them in compliance with Iran’s existing laws and constitution.”

Oct. 5, 2014: Ali Rezaian says Salehi was released on bail during the previous week and was permitted one visit with her husband.

Dec. 6, 2014: After nearly five months of detention, Rezaian is charged after a 10-hour court proceeding that is closed to the public. He is denied legal representation and is accompanied by a government-appointed Farsi translator. He is denied bail.

Dec. 11, 2014: Mary Rezaian appears on video and pleads for her son’s release.


Jason Rezaian’s wife, Yeganeh Salehi, and his mother, Mary Rezaian, in Tehran on July 13 after the Washington Post correspondent’s third hearing at the Revolutionary Court. They were not allowed to attend the closed-door session, and Jason Rezaian’s attorney was barred from publicly discussing the proceedings. (Vahid Salemi/AP)

Jan. 14, 2015: Jason Rezaian’s case is transferred to a branch of the Revolutionary Court, which is closely aligned with Iranian intelligence services.

Feb. 1, 2015:Judge Abolghassem Salavati is picked to preside over the trial, according to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. He is one of six judges who are leading a crackdown on journalists and political activists in Iran, according to human rights groups. He formally charges Rezaian, then prohibits his chosen attorney from representing him.

Feb. 8, 2015: At a Munich Security Conference session, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius asks Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, about Rezaian. “I hope that he will be cleared of the charges in a court of law,” Zarif answers, “and that will be a good day for me.”

Much more to his story is found here.

 

The Accurate ISIS News Agency

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A News Agency With Scoops Directly From ISIS, and a Veneer of Objectivity

NYT: The San Bernardino shootings. The killing rampage this week in a Baghdad mall. On Thursday, it was the explosion that ripped through a Starbucks in Jakarta.

In each of those terrorist attacks, an outlet called the Amaq News Agency was first with the news that the Islamic State was going to claim responsibility. The agency has been getting the scoops because it gets tips straight from ISIS, and for those of us on the terrorism beat, that has made Amaq a must-read every time a bomb goes off.

It publishes a heavy stream of short releases on an encrypted phone app called Telegram, functioning much like an official news agency might inside a totalitarian state. The alerts, articles and videos take on the trappings of mainstream journalism, with “Breaking News” and “Exclusive” headings.

And its reporters try to appear objective, toning down the jihadist hyperbole ISIS uses in its official releases. (The Jakarta attackers were “Islamic State fighters” rather than the ISIS-preferred “soldiers of the Caliphate.” Victims are “foreign citizens” rather than “Crusaders.”)

Make no mistake, though: Amaq is putting out the Islamic State’s message, and the veneer of separation between the terrorist group and what has now become its unacknowledged wire service is quickly disintegrating. Though the group is not officially part of the ISIS media apparatus, it functions much that way.

“It has become much more assimilated into the Islamic State’s propaganda infrastructure, and now it’s a fully fledged and very important part of it. It has become the first point of publication for claims of responsibility by the group — though not as a rule,” said Charlie Winter, a senior researcher at the Transcultural Conflict and Violence Initiative at Georgia State. He pointed out that one of the biggest attacks — the Nov. 13 killings in Paris — followed the more traditional route, with the claim of responsibility published directly by ISIS.

The Islamic State maintains its official Al Bayan radio station, which puts out daily news bulletins, and its monthly magazine Dabiq, as well as many production companies that put out its grisly videos. Beyond those, there are also media offices in each of the Islamic State’s provinces. The material that goes out on these official outlets has the ultimate stamp of ISIS approval — that’s what they want us to know about their ideology and their tactics.

Those messages are tightly controlled, honed to both appeal to the largest numbers of recruits as well as designed to intimidate and sow fear.

As one example of how much they control their messaging, consider what happened to the British jihadist Omar Hussain. This month, Mr. Hussain published a string of essays about life under the Islamic State — and then he was served a cease-and-desist order by the ISIS Media Committee.

The terror group ordered him to shut down his Telegram account or face the consequences, according to a screen grab of the message which he shared with his followers in his farewell post. Perhaps they didn’t like the 6,000-word diatribe he posted, ranting against Arabs and accusing Syrian children of stealing his phone charger.

Amaq appears to have been created, or allowed to develop, as a way to create a source of information that is still basically controlled by the Islamic State but is somewhat removed from the group, giving ISIS more of the appearance of legitimacy.

One of the closest watchers of jihadist propaganda for years has been SITE Intelligence in Washington. The researchers there say they first saw the Amaq name pop up during the drawn-out battle for Kobani, the Kurdish town on the Syria-Turkey border that ISIS captured in 2014. The tracking group’s director, Rita Katz, said she and her staff noticed that ISIS fighters were sharing the Amaq updates on their personal accounts.

For much of its evolution, Amaq appeared to be posting updates and on-the-ground developments, but there was no clear pattern of Amaq preceding ISIS in claims of responsibility.

That changed last month, when a married couple, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, burst into the holiday party at the San Bernardino County Health Department and began shooting. Amaq was the first to report that the two supported the Islamic State. A day later, the Islamic State said the same thing in its official broadcast.

As more and more attacks have broken out in recent days, Amaq has almost always been first to report that the Islamic State was behind them.

“They are behaving like a state media. ISIS sees themselves as a state, as a country — and a country needs to have its own media,” Ms. Katz said.

Taking its cues from the Western media, Amaq has even been featuring “embedded” reporters at the scenes of major ISIS battles. When ISIS took the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria, it was an Amaq cameraman who captured the first footage, Mr. Winter said.

One thing to remember, though, is that Amaq’s function is to spread Islamic State propaganda. You hardly have to dig to see the spin. When United State Special Forces helped Kurdish forces free dozens of prisoners from an ISIS jail in northern Iraq in October, one American soldier was killed. But the Amaq headline had a different take: The headline was “A Failed Airdrop Operation by the American Army.”

al Qaeda at Southern Border, Shurkrjumah an Informant?

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New State Department Intel Confirms Arab Smuggling “Cells,” Al Qaeda Leader in Mexico   This week, Judicial Watch published another in our series of Pulitzer Prize-worthy reports the narco-terror threat, one of the many existential threats as a result of purposefully lax border security at the U.S.-Mexican reporter. I reprint the chilling report below from you from our Corruption Chronicles blog:

For more than a decade the U.S. government has known that “Arab extremists” are entering the country through Mexico with the assistance of smuggling network “cells,” according to State Department documents obtained by Judicial Watch that reveal among them was a top Al Qaeda operative wanted by the FBI. Some Mexican smuggling networks actually specialize in providing logistical support for Arab individuals attempting to enter the United States, the government documents say. The top Al Qaeda leader in Mexico was identified in the September 2004 cable from the American consulate in Ciudad Juárez as Adnan G. El Shurkrjumah. The cable was released to Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act.

The new intelligence records were released as a result of an ongoing JW investigation into the critical national security threats on the southern border, specifically those created by Islamic terrorists teaming up with Mexican drug cartels to infiltrate and attack the U.S. In response to JW’s reporting in the last two years the Obama administration-through various spokespeople, including FBI Director James Comey-has vehemently denied that Islamic terrorists are operating in Mexican towns near American cities or entering the U.S. through the famously porous southern border. The State Department documents, which include substantial redactions supposedly to protect classified and personal information, contradict this. JW obtained them as part of an investigative series into Shukrijumah, an Al Qaeda operative also known as Javier Robles. In December, 2014 Shukrijumah was killed by the Pakistan Army in an intelligence-borne operation in South Waziristan. But before he died Shukrijumah helped plan several U.S. attacks, including plots to bomb Oprah Winfrey’s studio and detonate nuclear devices in multiple American cities. For years Shukrijumah appeared on the FBI’s most wanted list and, despite being sought by the agency, he crossed back and forth into the U.S. from Mexico to meet fellow militant Islamists in Texas. JW has reported that, as one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, Shukrijumah piloted an aircraft into the Cielo Dorado airfield in Anthony, New Mexico. The new State Department records show that U.S. authorities knew Shukrijumah was in Mexico because they say that the Regional Security Office (RSO) at the consulate in Ciudad Juárez used newspapers to distribute information throughout Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico about the Al Qaeda operative at the request of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in El Paso. This appears on page 17 of the documents, which are linked above in their entirety. Of interesting note is that the government uses an exemption that applies to classified information to continue to withhold some of the records when the entire file was already declassified back in September, 2014. Information about Middle Eastern terrorists entering the U.S. through Mexico appears in a September 2, 2004 cable-declassified 10 years later-titled “CONFIDENTIAL INFORMANT, A PROVEN CI TO USG IN THE PAST, REPORTS ARAB CELLS WITHIN MEXICO.” It explains that a reputable government informant went to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juárez and provided information pertaining to suspect Arab extremists who have been smuggled into the U.S. through the Mexican border. “The confidential source (SUBJECT) stated his family member, who is a human trafficker, knows the exact whereabouts of three Arabs who are currently being hidden in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico,” the State Department cable reads. “Although not absolutely positive, one of the three is likely Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, alleged to be a Saudi Arabian terrorist cell leader thought to be in Mexico. SUBJECT also provided information on two smuggling networks, “cells,” that specialize in providing logistical support for Arab individuals attempting to enter the United States.” Many questions remain about the U.S. government’s relationship with Shukrijumah, but last spring JW obtained records from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) that indicate he was a Confidential Source/Informant for the government. Shukrijumah lived in South Florida’s Broward County and graduated from Broward Community College with a degree in computer engineering. Four months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks Shukrijumah fled the U.S. He was one of the suspected actors in a number of planned terror attacks in the U.S., including a plot to simultaneously detonate nuclear devices in several U.S. cities. Convicted terrorist Jose Padilla claimed to have trained with Shukrijumah to blow up U.S. apartment buildings using natural gas explosions. In 2010 Shukrijumah was indicted in the Eastern District of New York for his role in a terrorist plot to attack targets in the United States-including New York City’s subway system-and the United Kingdom, according the FBI. The plot against New York City’s subway system was directed by senior Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan, the FBI says, and was directly related to a scheme by Al Qaeda plotters in Pakistan to use Western operatives to attack a target in the United States. A year earlier Shukrijumah helped plan a terrorist truck-bomb targeting Winfrey’s Harpo Studios in Chicago as well as the iconic Sears Tower. Two of his fellow conspirators-Emad Karakrah and Hector Pedroza Huerta-were arrested in 2014 for unrelated state crimes in different parts of the country. Karakrah got busted in Chicago on charges of making a false car bomb threat after leading police on a high-speed chase with an ISIS flag waving from his vehicle. Huerta, an illegal alien twice convicted for driving intoxicated, got nabbed in El Paso for drunk driving. Both Karakrah and Pedroza were released from custody in 2015 under highly unusual plea deals. The men formed part of a sophisticated narco-terror ring, exposed in a JW investigative series, with connections running from El Paso to Chicago to New York City. The operation includes an all-star lineup of logistics and transportation operatives for militant Islamists in the United State, drug and weapons smugglers for the Juarez drug cartel in Mexico, an FBI confidential informant gone rogue and two of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists. Shukrijumah was one of them and, though he’s dead, he is an important part of the puzzle and extremely relevant when connecting the dots in the narco-terror ring.

The crisis at the Mexican border – and the government’s lies about the worsening Islamist terror threat – could result in a terrorist attack calamity for the United States. But you can see that we can make a difference – as I’m convinced JW’s reporting flushed the al Qaeda operative out of Mexico and resulted in his demise in Mexico.
 

Judicial Watch Clinton Records Lawsuits Uncovers More Hidden Documents

As if the hidden Clinton email cache wasn’t enough, apparently, the Obama State Department recently found “thousands” of new records from Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State. According to information provided to Judicial Watch by various Justice Department attorneys, the new documents appear to be “working” records in electronic format located on both “shared” and “individual” drives accessible to or used by persons identified as being relevant to Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits on the Benghazi scandal and controversies from Clinton’s term at State. The State Department confirmed the new find in a court filing earlier this month as part of a FOIA lawsuit concerning records about Clinton aide Huma Abedin:

After State filed its motion for summary judgment in this case [on November 11, 2015], State located additional sources of documents that originated within the Office of the Secretary that are reasonably likely to contain records responsive to Plaintiff’s request. State has informed Plaintiff that it intends to search these locations, produce non-exempt portions of any responsive records, and file a supplemental declaration in support of its motion for summary judgment (which is presently stayed).

This is how the Washington Free Beacon reported on JW’s find:

The watchdog group Judicial Watch has been suing the State Department for years to turn over public records related to Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation, the employment arrangements of Clinton’s top aides, and her response to the Benghazi attack. According to the State Department, the newly found records are likely to include information relevant to Judicial Watch’s requests. Officials said they would need until at least Feb. 1 to review the documents.

In another modified limited hangout, the State Department admitted in another JW court case that the new records include the files of two of Clinton’s top aides:

The newly identified files that need to be searched in this case consist of office files that were available to employees within the Office of the Secretary during former Secretary Clinton’s tenure as well as individual files belonging to Jake Sullivan and Cheryl Mills.

The notorious Mills was Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff at State and Sullivan was her top policy advisor. Both now work on her presidential campaign. As best as I can tell, the Obama State Department is still withholding key facts. We still don’t where exactly these newly identified records are located; why they were not identified and searched previously; and how and when they were just identified. This is the statement we issued to the press about this new Clinton records scandal:

This latest find of Clinton records, at this late date, is astonishing. The State Department waited to last possible moment, as it did with the Clinton emails, to tell Judicial Watch and the federal courts about thousands of records that haven’t been searched, as the law requires. Who knew what – and when did they know it – about these new Clinton documents? These newly recovered Clinton records are a potential game changer – and will be of interest to the courts, Congress, and the FBI’s criminal investigation. It sure looks like more of the same in terms of Obama administration officials’ obstructing our FOIA requests, obstructing the courts, obstructing Congress, and obstructing justice. Judicial Watch exposed this new cover up on the heels of a finding by State Department’s Inspector General that Hillary Clinton and the Obama State Department thwarted specific Judicial Watch FOIA requests by lying about her email system with “inaccurate” and “incomplete” responses.

Despite this new obstruction, there was some success last week over our legal fight for all the emails of Huma Abedin, another Clinton State consigliere. We forced the State Department to agree to review and release under FOIA at least 29,000 Abedin emails over the next year. As Politico’s Josh Gerstein reported:

At a court hearing in September, a Justice Department attorney said State had no plans to process for release all of the emails submitted by Abedin and other top aides such as Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills and Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan. However, a legal filing Monday in a lawsuit brought by the conservative group Judicial Watch indicated State has acceded to a request to process all the emails Abedin turned over, except for news articles and summaries. “The parties have agreed that State will produce to Judicial Watch responsive, nonexempt records from within the recently received documents, excluding news clippings/briefings contained therein,” said the court filing (posted here). The schedule the two sides agreed to has the disclosure of the records overlapping significantly with Clinton’s presidential campaign and will have the State Department ramping up release of Abedin’s private emails just as the agency winds down its disclosure of Clinton’s messages.

So now a court will supervise the release of records the Obama gang had previously opposed. Though we all would have like to have the records released years ago, as opposed to within a year, you should know that the Obama operatives trying to protect Hillary Clinton’s quest for the presidency wanted us to wait three years! Looking back over this week, it’s remarkable that JW’s numerous lawsuits continue to make waves on the Clinton records issue. Mrs. Clinton is probably worrying about 150 FBI agents, investigating her potential crimes on her records scandal and her evident abuse of office to help out those funding the Clinton Foundation and her own bank accounts. But as JW’s work first led to the disclosure of both these scandals, you can see how JW is the key driver of the effort to hold her accountable for her corruption.

Until next week…

Tom Fitton President

Iran Sanctions, the Agenda of Congress

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50 House republicans calls upon Kerry to change course on and support US allies in the region.
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Report paving way for Iran sanctions relief likely on Saturday – source

An IAEA report verifying that Iran has kept its promises under a nuclear deal it reached with world powers last year is likely to be issued on Saturday, paving the way for sanctions on Tehran to be lifted, a diplomatic source said on Friday.

Iranian and other officials had previously said they expected the report to come out on Friday.

“Almost all details are ironed out,” said another diplomatic source, based in the Austrian capital.

Vienna is home to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog in charge of monitoring Iran’s implementation of the measures required in the deal Iran reached with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany last July.

The July deal calls on the agency to release its report once it has verified Iran has implemented all nuclear-related measures. The IAEA had no comment on Friday on the timing of the report.

Iranian officials have said Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the European Union’s Federica Mogherini would issue a statement on Saturday or Sunday on the “Implementation Day” of the nuclear deal and the lifting of sanctions.

Under the July agreement, Iran agreed to shrink its atomic programme in exchange for the lifting of some EU, U.S. and U.N sanctions, which would allow billions of dollars of investment to flow into the country.

Since July, Iran has drastically reduced the number of centrifuges installed at its enrichment sites, shipped tonnes of low-enriched uranium materials to Russia and dismantled the core of its Arak nuclear reactor.

Some officials said a meeting in relation to Iran might take place on Saturday in Vienna, where the deal was reached.

“There may be some sort of a meeting tomorrow in Vienna, after which, if everything goes well, we will issue a statement from the Secretary-General,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

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WSJ: BRUSSELS—The European Union has rolled over until January 28 the modest sanctions suspension Iran won following the 2013 interim nuclear deal.

The move comes as Western and Iranian officials say they expect the full implementation of last July’s final nuclear deal to take place in coming days. That will trigger the suspension of broad European, U.S. and United Nations sanctions on Iran.

“As soon as the International Atomic Energy Agency confirms that Iran has taken the nuclear measures under” July’s deal, member states “will give effect to the lifting of all EU economic financial sanctions taken in connection with the Iranian nuclear program,” the bloc said in a news release. That “will supersede the limited sanctions relief extended today,” the bloc said.

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Under the interim deal, struck in November 2013, Iran won relief from sanctions on gold and precious-metals trading and some measures affecting its auto and petrochemicals exports. The sanctions relief, which included the unfreezing of some oil revenues held under U.S. sanctions abroad, was estimated at the time to be worth some $7 billion.

In exchange, Iran agreed modest restraints on its nuclear program.

July’s final deal lifts most sanctions on Iran in exchange for major steps to wind back Tehran’s nuclear activities.

According to EU diplomats, the bloc was originally considering rolling over the sanctions suspension for three weeks but as Iran raced to complete the work needed for the final nuclear deal to take effect, they cut the rollover period to two weeks.

Obama Cool with Iran’s Aggressions

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Unabated Hostility

Smith, WeeklyStandard: Early last Wednesday, Iran released the ten American sailors it had detained to coincide with President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night. The administration understood clearly that the Iranians were both trying to ruin Obama’s victory lap and sending a message—on the eve of implementing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—that Tehran will be calling the shots. So Obama made no mention of Iran’s capturing 10 Americans during his speech: No way were the Iranians going to get a rise out of him on his day.

The administration would prefer to forget the incident entirely—along with a series of other hostile acts by Iran since the nuclear deal was signed in July. In addition to its customary “Death to America” rallies, in the last few months the Islamic Republic has sentenced, in secret, Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian; imprisoned U.S. citizen Siamak Namazi; tested ballistic missiles, in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions; fired rockets near a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Straits of Hormuz; and attacked two diplomatic missions belonging to longtime American ally Saudi Arabia. Detaining American sailors comports perfectly with this pattern.

Some American lawmakers aren’t willing to let it slide. Representative Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) released a statement saying “we now must fully investigate Iran for possible violations of the Geneva Convention and ensure these sailors were treated properly.”

Pompeo is on solid ground. When the Iranians detained British sailors in 2007 and paraded them on television, Prime Minister Tony Blair rightly described it as a breach of the Geneva Conventions. Article 13 stipulates that “prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.” The first piece of evidence that the Iranians violated Geneva are the photographs and videos of the American sailors, especially those of them kneeling with their hands behind their heads, which were shown repeatedly in the Iranian media; further evidence is the coerced apology from the commanding officer.

It’s worth noting that Iran’s latest hostile action has given us a clearer picture of how the regime actually functions. As the event unfolded, CNN and other American media spoke of the “two Irans,” meaning the hardliners and the moderates. This has been the administration’s working theory, which holds that the former comprises the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The “moderates” in this view are figures like President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. In this scenario, it was the “hardliners” who were responsible for detaining the 10 Americans, and it was thanks to the diplomatic channel that John Kerry opened with Zarif while negotiating the nuclear deal that the sailors were freed without much delay. This theory posits that the hardliners kidnapped the Americans in an effort to embarrass the moderates, who want warmer relations with the White House. Therefore, the fact that the moderates prevailed signals a great victory for moderation and American diplomacy—for “principled diplomacy,” to use Obama’s phrase.

This scenario may be possible, but it isn’t likely. If there really is a split in the regime, why would the hardliners put themselves in a position to lose an intra-regime battle against the moderates? It would show the world that they’re not only weaker than the moderates, they’re also weaker than the moderates’ new partners, John Kerry and Barack Obama. Indeed, if it was the moderates who liberated the sailors from the grip of the extremists, it means the supreme leader himself required them to free the Great Satan’s seamen. Which would mean that the supreme leader has sided with the moderates and the Americans against the extremists.

That’s a stretch, to say the least. What is far more likely is that there is no such split between moderates and hardliners. The two camps—if there are indeed two camps—work in tandem. The hardliners take prisoners and the moderates negotiate the price of their release. Iran’s moderates are a ministry of bagmen sent out to collect on behalf of the hard men.

In short, the regime with which the White House has negotiated the future of American national security is still a regime that takes Americans hostage. Unless you believe that hijacking a U.S. Navy boat, humiliating its crew, photographing them with their hands above their heads, and broadcasting their apologies on state television is a demonstration of peaceful, moderate intentions.