Rep. Edward R. Royce made the request in a letter to Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. | AP Photo Royce chides Obama administration on proliferation House Foreign Affairs chair asks State, Justice to revive probes that may have been undermined by Iran dealings.

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee called on top Trump administration officials Tuesday to “revive law enforcement efforts unwisely abandoned by the Obama administration” targeting Iran’s nuclear, ballistic missile and weapons programs, in response to a POLITICO investigation about how U.S. counterproliferation efforts may have been undermined in the effort to secure a nuclear deal and prisoner swap with Tehran.

Rep. Edward R. Royce made the request in a letter to Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, citing POLITICO’s findings that the Obama-led State and Justice departments delayed and at times derailed key investigations and prosecutions into global Iranian trafficking networks during those prolonged negotiations.


Royce said he was particularly concerned about details in the POLITICO report about how Obama administration “Justice and State Department officials denied or delayed requests from prosecutors and agents to lure some key Iranian fugitives to friendly countries so that they could be arrested.”

“Needless to say, the Obama Administration appears to have done serious damage to our national security,” wrote Royce (R-Calif.) and Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), who co-signed the letter. “To better understand the impact of the prior Administration’s interference in law enforcement investigations, and to ascertain whether there was excessive denial or non-processing of extradition requests and lure memos, we respectfully request that your agencies brief the Committee on law enforcement investigations delayed by the previous Administration.”

“Iran’s continued belligerence toward the U.S. and our allies is a vital national security threat that demands constant vigilance,” the two wrote, urging Sessions and Tillerson to make the request a top priority within the Trump administration’s broader review of the Iran Deal and U.S. policy toward Tehran that was announced last week.

Officials at the Justice Department had no immediate comment, but the State Department did offer a response.

“We have received the letter, and will respond to Chairman Royce and Ranking Member [Eliot] Engel. Generally speaking, we remain committed to prosecuting, regardless of citizenship, those who violate our export control laws and the U.S. trade embargo on Iran,” a State Department official said.

Obama announced the two agreements with Iran in a Sunday morning address to the nation from the White House, on Jan. 17, 2016, saying he was granting clemency to seven Iranian-born prisoners or criminal defendants who “were not charged with terrorism or any violent offenses.”

In fact, the Obama administration dropped charges and international arrests for another 14 Iranian fugitives, too, sparking outrage among federal law enforcement investigators and prosecutors who believed the men posed a far greater threat to national security than the White House was publicly acknowledging.

Some of those agents, from the FBI and departments of Homeland Security and Commerce, had spent years, if not decades, working to penetrate the global proliferation networks that allowed Iranian arms traders both to obtain crucial materials for Tehran’s illicit nuclear and ballistic missile programs and, in some cases, to provide dangerous materials to other countries.

Justice Department prosecutors did, too, as part of a National Counterproliferation Initiative launched in 2007, but most if not all of the officials working on the matters were not informed that their cases were being used as bargaining chips in the prisoner swap and broader nuclear negotiations with Iran, POLITICO reported.

A senior committee staffer told POLITICO that Royce and other committee members had heard rumors about counterproliferation efforts being undermined in the long run-up to the implementation of the Iran Deal and prisoner swap, and for months afterward. But he said they were unable to substantiate them, even after holding a hearing in February to review how the Iran Deal was working.

“We were trying to get to the bottom of it and were not able to, until we saw the [POLITICO] story,” the senior staffer said. “It’s fair to say that we didn’t know the full extent of what happened until we saw the report.”

Sign up here for POLITICO Huddle A daily play-by-play of congressional news in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The House committee became aware of some elements of the POLITICO story in the form of written testimony from physicist and former weapons inspector David Albright, founder of the Institute for Science and International Security, which he provided in advance of the February hearing.

A frequent Justice Department witness on Iranian trafficking cases, Albright wrote that “out of a misplaced fear of negatively affecting the deal, the Obama administration … interfered in U.S. law enforcement efforts.”

“During the negotiations and for some time afterwards, the administration blocked or did not process several extradition requests and lure memos aimed at arresting and convicting Iranians and their agents engaged in breaking U.S. export and sanctions laws,” Albright told the committee. “These actions, largely concentrated in the State Department, reportedly interfered with investigations and served to discourage new or on-going federal investigations of commodity trafficking involving Iran. “

Albright's testimony tracked similar statements he made to POLITICO that were included in its report.

In their letter, Royce and Mast also asked the Trump administration’s top law enforcement and diplomacy officials to “evaluate the feasibility of re-opening any cases that were wrongly hindered.”

“This, along with an administration-wide policy directive to encourage investigations of Iranian commodity trafficking efforts that includes a determined extradition process, should be an important part of a reinvigorated U.S. policy to address Iranian threats,” they wrote. “We stand ready to support the Administration’s efforts to more aggressively investigate, indict, and extradite those involved in supplying Iran’s nuclear, missile, or conventional weapons programs in defiance of U.S. law.”