Obama’s hidden Iran deal giveaway

By dropping charges against major arms targets, the administration infuriated Justice Department officials — and undermined its own counterproliferation task forces.

By JOSH MEYER

04/24/2017 05:00 AM EDT

Fact check

The Obama administration actually granted clemency to seven Iranian-born men convicted or awaiting trial in the United States, including some that Justice Department officials said posed threats to national security, and dropped U.S. charges and international arrest warrants against 14 others. All fugitives, the 14 included some of the most wanted Iranian agents suspected of procuring parts and technolog for Tehran’s nuclear, ballistics missile and weapons programs.

Here are some of the key players let go in the prisoner swap

The Military Logistics Network

Hamid Arabnejad (above), Gholamreza Mahmoudi and Ali Moattar, Iranian citizens and Mahan Air executives, were indicted in 2014 in connection with a conspiracy to illegally obtain six Boeing airplanes for the private Iranian airline. U.S. authorities also sanctioned Mahan Air and the men for a variety of alleged crimes, including using the airline to provide financial and logistical support to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and its paramilitary Quds Force, which the U.S. designated as a supporter of terrorism in 2007. Arabnejad was individually designated for allegedly overseeing Mahan Air’s sanctions evasion efforts and provision of support and services to Quds Force.

The Military and Weapons Pipeline

Arash Ghahreman (above), a naturalized U.S. citizen from Staten Island, N.Y., was convicted in April 2015 and is serving 78 months for his role in a scheme to illegally procure marine navigation and military electronic equipment for Iran. Also charged in the San Diego case was Iranian national Koorush Taherkhani and his Dubai firm, described as a front established to obtain American goods and technologies for Iran. Ghahreman promised undercover agents posing as suppliers that his network needed “trusted and reliable” partners, prosecutors said. A top Justice Department official said the network had “the potential to harm U.S. national security objectives.”

The Improvised Explosives Network

Amin Ravan, known by U.S. officials as a longtime globe-trotting procurement agent for Tehran, was charged in Washington, D.C., in 2011 along with his Tehran firm and others with smuggling U.S.-made military antennae to Hong Kong and Singapore for use in Iran. Authorities also say he is an unindicted co-conspirator in a sprawling procurement network that sent to Tehran thousands of U.S.-made radio frequency modules, some of which ended up in a particularly deadly form of IED responsible for killing American troops in Iraq. Ravan was arrested in Malaysia in 2012, but released before U.S. authorities could have him extradited.

The Missile Parts Pipeline

Bahram Mechanic (above) was charged in Houston in April 2015, along with alleged U.S.-based associates Khosrow Afghahi and Tooraj Faridi and Matin Sadeghi of Turkey, with supplying Iran with U.S.-origin microelectronics and other commodities “frequently used in a wide range of military systems, including surface-air and cruise missiles.” The men, and four U.S. and Iranian companies, allegedly sent $24 million worth of commodities to Iran between 2010 and 2015 alone, in a conspiracy one Justice Department official described as “a clear threat to U.S. national security.” Mechanic has led a broader Houston-based Iranian procurement network since at least 1985, authorities say.

The Nuclear Network

Seyed Abolfazl Shahab Jamili, a Tehran-based import-export businessman, was charged under seal in Boston in 2013 with conspiring with Chinese associate Sihai Cheng (above) and two Iranian companies to procure thousands of parts with nuclear applications for Iran in a conspiracy dating back to 2005. Beginning in February 2009, the two allegedly conspired with others to illegally obtain hundreds of specially manufactured pressure transducers — believed critical to running Tehran’s clandestine nuclear program — from an Andover, Massachusetts, company that was not suspected of wrongdoing. Although Jamili was the suspected mastermind, Cheng pleaded guilty a month before the swap and is serving a nine-year prison sentence.

The Obama administration’s decision to grant clemency to seven men in the U.S. and drop criminal charges and arrest warrants against 14 others overseas undermined strategic enforcement efforts against a broad array of Iranian procurement networks operating in the U.S. that have provided Tehran with a steady stream of critically important parts and technologies for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and to maintain and expand its military and weapons systems.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/24/obama-iran-nuclear-deal-prisoner-release-236966?fbclid=IwAR2WXRbXiWLAejI0NOHiGrojXPqvnxIEuYgHhk_eNH4Mvqd8-amFaHitPC8

Obama’s hidden Iran deal giveaway

By dropping charges against major arms targets, the administration infuriated Justice Department officials — and undermined its own counterproliferation task forces.04/24/2017

When President Barack Obama announced the “one-time gesture” of releasing Iranian-born prisoners who “were not charged with terrorism or any violent offenses” last year, his administration presented the move as a modest trade-off for the greater good of the Iran nuclear agreement and Tehran’s pledge to free five Americans….

But Obama, the senior official and other administration representatives weren’t telling the whole story on Jan. 17, 2016, in their highly choreographed rollout of the prisoner swap and simultaneous implementation of the six-party nuclear deal, according to a POLITICO investigation.

Obama portrayed the seven men he freed as “civilians.” The senior official described them as businessmen convicted of or awaiting trial for mere “sanctions-related offenses, violations of the trade embargo.”

In reality, some of them were accused by Obama’s own Justice Department of posing threats to national security. Three allegedly were part of an illegal procurement network supplying Iran with U.S.-made microelectronics with applications in surface-to-air and cruise missiles like the kind Tehran test-fired recently, prompting a still-escalating exchange of threats with the Trump administration. Another was serving an eight-year sentence for conspiring to supply Iran with satellite technology and hardware. As part of the deal, U.S. officials even dropped their demand for $10 million that a jury said the aerospace engineer illegally received from Tehran.

And in a series of unpublicized court filings, the Justice Department dropped charges and international arrest warrants against 14 other men, all of them fugitives. The administration didn’t disclose their names or what they were accused of doing, noting only in an unattributed, 152-word statement about the swap that the U.S. “also removed any Interpol red notices and dismissed any charges against 14 Iranians for whom it was assessed that extradition requests were unlikely to be successful.”

Three of the fugitives allegedly sought to lease Boeing aircraft for an Iranian airline that authorities say had supported Hezbollah, the U.S.-designated terrorist organization. A fourth, Behrouz Dolatzadeh, was charged with conspiring to buy thousands of U.S.-made assault rifles and illegally import them into Iran.

A fifth, Amin Ravan, was charged with smuggling U.S. military antennas to Hong Kong and Singapore for use in Iran. U.S. authorities also believe he was part of a procurement network providing Iran with high-tech components for an especially deadly type of IED used by Shiite militias to kill hundreds of American troops in Iraq.

The biggest fish, though, was Seyed Abolfazl Shahab Jamili, who had been charged with being part of a conspiracy that from 2005 to 2012 procured thousands of parts with nuclear applications for Iran via China. That included hundreds of U.S.-made sensors for the uranium enrichment centrifuges in Iran whose progress had prompted the nuclear deal talks in the first place.

When federal prosecutors and agents learned the true extent of the releases, many were shocked and angry. Some 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.

“They didn’t just dismiss a bunch of innocent business guys,” said one former federal law enforcement supervisor centrally involved in the hunt for Iranian arms traffickers and nuclear smugglers. “And then they didn’t give a full story of it.”

In its determination to win support for the nuclear deal and prisoner swap from Tehran — and from Congress and the American people — the Obama administration did a lot more than just downplay the threats posed by the men it let off the hook, according to POLITICO’s findings.

More info:

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/24/obama-iran-nuclear-deal-prisoner-release-236966?fbclid=IwAR2WXRbXiWLAejI0NOHiGrojXPqvnxIEuYgHhk_eNH4Mvqd8-amFaHitPC8