As tensions between the United States and Iran mount, an exclusive piece reports that former Obama administration officials are using their connections to speak with Iranian officials in what appears to be an attempt to undercut the Trump administration.

As the Trump administration sent warplanes and an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, a small group of former Obama administration officials reached out to their contacts in the Iranian government, including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Zarif, who visits the U.S. every year for the U.N. General Assembly in New York, usually meets with lawmakers, think tanks, journalists, and former officials when he is in town.

But the recent round of conversations, which took place over the phone and in person over the last two months, came as lines of communication between the U.S. and Iran, through intermediaries in Europe and elsewhere, deteriorated.

“It’s not just about what they were saying to the Iranians,” an aide told the Daily Beast. “It’s about what they were saying to their political allies back here in the U.S. Their strategy was to divide and isolate the Trump administration just as the Trump administration was trying to re-establish deterrence with Iran.”

“In the current highly partisan political environment, the only safe course is to signal national unity—and they contributed to eroding that at home and abroad,” the aide continued.

CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Mark Dubowitz said “Former Obama administration officials gave wrong-headed advice to the regime in Iran that U.S. sanctions couldn’t work without European support and that the regime should just wait out the Trump administration.”

He said these Obama officials would be “wise” to tell its Iranian counterparts to go back to the negotiating table with the Trump administration.

“Bipartisan support for efforts to block the Islamic Republic’s malign activities strengthens American security,” Dubowitz said.

Mark Hemingway with the Weekly Standard wrote that these conversations could be a violation of the Logan Act — legislation that prohibits non-governmental people from engaging in diplomatic discussions on behalf of the United States.

Earlier in May, President Donald Trump accused former Secretary of State John Kerry of violating the Logan Act for his talks with the Iranian government.

“What I would like to see with Iran, I would like to see them call me. John Kerry, he speaks to them a lot. John Kerry tells them not to call. That is a violation of the Logan Act,” President Trump said. “And frankly, he should be prosecuted on that.”

In September, former Secretary of State John Kerry admitted to meeting with Zarif “three or four times” since Donald Trump took office, a move which drew condemnation from conservatives who said Kerry was “coaching” the Iranian foreign minister on how to deal with the White House.

In response, some Republican lawmakers levied charges that Kerry is engaged in rogue diplomacy and is undermining the active, elected administration.

Kerry defended the meetings, saying: “What I have done is tried to elicit from him what Iran might be willing to do in order to change the dynamic in the Middle East for the better.”

According to Politico, the Democratic Senator from California, Dianne Feinstein, had dinner with the Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif when he was in the United States a few weeks ago. Last week, Playbook reported that Feinstein was walking around the Capitol with Zarif’s contact information pulled up on her iPhone.

Conversations between former Obama officials and Iranian government officials have been ongoing since November 2016.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations revealed that under Barack Obama, the Treasury Department issued a license in February 2016, never previously disclosed, that would have allowed Iran to convert $5.7 billion it held at a bank in Oman from Omani rials into euros by exchanging them first into U.S. dollars.

If the Omani bank had allowed the exchange without such a license, it would have violated sanctions that bar Iran from transactions that touch the U.S. financial system.

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