Report: Biden’s suspended Iran envoy Rob Malley engaged in Iranian operation to influence policy centers

U.S. President Joe Biden’s top envoy for Iranian affairs, Rob Malley, was suspended and placed on leave without pay in April. While the exact cause of his suspension has yet to be officially disclosed, new reports have emerged suggesting that Malley has worked closely with a ‘High-Level Iranian Spy Ring Busted in Washington.’

Journalist Lee Smith wrote an article in Tablet magazine claiming that Malley “helped to fund, support, and direct an Iranian intelligence operation designed to influence the United States and allied governments, according to a trove of purloined Iranian government emails.”

Lee based his conclusions on a cache of emails that were exposed by Iran International, a prominent anti-regime Iranian media outlet based in London. Along with veteran reporter Jay Solomon, writing for Semafor, the two news outlets conducted a shared investigation to examine thousands of emails between Iranian diplomats and analysts.

The email correspondence revealed a concerning pattern: Three of Robert Malley's aides were part of an Iranian government network. They all had undisclosed affiliations with the Tehran-backed ‘Iran Experts Initiative’ (IEI) which, according to Iran International, was established by the Iranian Foreign Ministry in 2014 to “extend Tehran's soft power.”

This network of Iranian American experts who worked for Western think tanks and held high-level positions are believed to have been receiving guidance directly from Tehran. It also allegedly aimed to hold sway over American and European policy centers, as they often provided advice to officials. Malley was one.

“The Iran Experts Initiative (IEI) tasked operatives drawn from Iranian diaspora communities to promote Iranian interests during the clerical regime’s negotiations with the United States over its nuclear weapons program,” wrote Smith.

The cache of emails also indicated that a group of between 6 to 10 American IEI members held meetings with top Iranian regime officials in foreign countries to receive direct guidance. The network was funded and supported by an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) official, Mostafa Zahrani, who served as a liaison between IEI group members and former Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.

Two of Malley’s aides, Ariane Tabatabai and Dina Esfandiary, were part of the IEI.

Malley recruited Tabatabai for his U.S. State Department team in 2021, where she worked under him for 15 months. She now works at the Pentagon, as chief of staff for the assistant secretary of defense for special operations. 

Esfandiary worked for Malley in a prominent think tank named ‘International Crisis Group’ (ICG). Malley served as the ICG’s president from January 2018 until January 2021, when he was appointed to his current role as envoy for Iran affairs for the Biden administration.

In 2014, Tabatabai sent Zahrani a link to an article she co-authored with Esfandiary. He forwarded the email to Zarif.

"As I mentioned last week, Dina and I wrote an article about the nuclear fuel of Bushehr [nuclear power plant] for the Bulletin which was published today. Our goal was to show what is said in the West – that Iran does not need more than 1,500 centrifuges – is wrong, and that Iran should not be expected to reduce the number of its centrifuges,” Tabatabai wrote.

The reports also mentioned that Malley sought to appoint a third IEI operative to the State Department, Ali Vaez, who was the ICG’s Iran project director, however, Vaez was unable to obtain the necessary security clearance for the position.

“Despite this, Malley was undeterred, maintaining Vaez as a confidant. Until recently, according to two people familiar with the situation,” noted the Iran International investigation.

In October 2014, Vaez wrote to then-Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif directly: “As an Iranian, based on my national and patriotic duty, I have not hesitated to help you in any way; from proposing to Your Excellency a public campaign against the notion of [nuclear] breakout, to assisting your team in preparing reports on practical needs of Iran.”

Tablet magazine requested a comment from the State Department on the report. In response, a spokesperson wrote: “We have seen the Semafor article, which does not presume it was a ‘spy ring,’ and we reject that characterization."

"Rob Malley remains on leave and we have no further comment due to privacy considerations. The Biden-Harris administration appointed Ariane Tabatabai to serve various roles in the U.S. government because of her expertise on nuclear and other foreign policy issues.”