Report: Biden’s suspended Iran envoy may have improperly shared confidential information

politics

From Victoria

A congressional investigation into President Biden’s suspended special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, has uncovered evidence that the State Department official may have shared classified information with people outside the U.S. government.

The evidence found by Republican lawmakers suggests that Malley, who was quietly placed on unpaid leave last June and whose security clearance was revoked two months earlier, passed classified documents to allies to “advance his diplomatic efforts” with Tehran, people briefed on the investigation told Semafor.

According to the source, Republican lawmakers learned that Malley transferred about a dozen documents, including some marked “sensitive” and “secret,” to his private devices during his job managing the Biden administration’s diplomatic relations with the U.S. adversary.

The documents reportedly contained “detailed notes” about his interactions with Iranian officials in the months leading up to his suspension, as well as material related to the U.S. government’s response to the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests in Iran.

Earlier this month, top Republicans on the Senate and House Foreign Affairs Committees called on the State Department to confirm “troubling allegations” that Malley stored sensitive information on his personal email account and cellphone that was later accessed by a “hostile cyber actor.”

“In particular, we believe that Mr. Malley’s security clearance was suspended because he allegedly transferred classified documents to his personal email account and downloaded those documents to his personal cell phone,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member James Risch (R-Idaho) and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) wrote in a May 6 letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“It is unclear to whom he intended to provide these documents, but it is believed that a hostile cyber actor could have gained access to his emails and/or phone and obtained the downloaded information,” the MPs said at the time.

A State Department spokesman told the Washington Post at the time that Malley was still on leave and that the department had provided information to Congress on personnel requests related to Iran policy. However, he declined to comment on the specific allegations made by Risch and McCaul.

In 2015, the FBI opened an investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for conduct similar to the allegations against Malley.

Clinton was found to have stored tens of thousands of emails from her time at the State Department on several unsecured private servers. These included 81 email chains containing classified information and seven containing classified material classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level.

The FBI concluded that Clinton had acted “extremely negligently” and that hostile actors may have gained access to her personal email account, but did not file charges against her.

According to McCaul and Risch, Malley is currently under investigation by the FBI.

The FBI and State Department did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.