According to the official, the employee is an Iranian-American named Arian Tabatabai.
According to information from Sky News Arabia, Tabatabaei works as an office manager Assistant Minister of Defensefor special operations and international conflicts.
The interesting thing is that members of… Congress They had warned the Minister of Defense Lloyd Austin of retaining Tabatabai in her position in a letter addressed to him in September 2023.
“We are concerned that an individual who allegedly served as part of an Iranian Foreign Ministry media operation is currently serving in a senior position in the Ministry of Defense. We urge you to take immediate action to ensure the administration is not compromised,” the letter said.
The letter noted that Tabatabai “was part of the so-called expert initiative Iran Started by senior officials Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs In a quiet effort to enhance Tehran’s image and positions on issues Global securityEspecially its nuclear programme.
The letter also noted that “concerns about Tabatabai are not new. In March 2021, shortly after she was appointed senior advisor in the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Iranian dissidents pointed to Tabatabai’s long history of parroting the Iranian regime’s talking points.”
“In April 2021, several members of the House of Representatives requested a review,” the letter, signed by four members of Congress, added Security clearance For Mrs. Tabatabai. In response, she refused Biden administration She described these allegations as ‘defamation and slander’.
However, recent allegations reported in Semaphore suggest that Ms. Tabatabai may have had a connection to the Iranian regime far beyond what even her strongest critics have alleged. The fact that the Department initially responded to these latest allegations by rushing to a full defense of Ms. Tabatabai, rather than taking the time to ensure that our national security is not compromised, suggests that you are protecting hiring pitfalls rather than prioritizing national security.
The members of Congress urged Secretary Austin to “immediately suspend Tabatabai’s security clearance pending further review, as the State Department did with its former supervisor, Robert Malley.”
The four members asked the minister to provide answers to several questions, and they set a date for him to respond to those questions, which should be October 6, 2023.
The questions were about whether the Pentagon knew that Tabatabai “served as part of the Iranian Experts Initiative associated with the Iranian government,” on what date Tabatabai was granted a security clearance and who granted her the security clearance, and whether Tabatabai’s security clearance was subject to periodic re-investigation.
The questions also included whether Tabatabai underwent any additional counterintelligence examination, such as undergoing a polygraph.
The members of Congress (House of Representatives) who submitted this letter are Roger Wicker, Charles Grassley, Mike Crapo, and John Cornyn.
