Congressional leaders are launching an investigation into the Obama administration’s efforts to kill a massive investigation into the Iranian-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah following a stunning report published by Politico on Sunday.
The report alleges that the Obama administration sabotaged a federal investigation into Hezbollah — dubbed “Project Cassandra” — so that President Obama could get his Iran deal to pass, fearing that any action against the terrorist group would stop Iran from agreeing to the deal.
Because of the report, multiple congressional officials and insiders confirmed to The Washington Free Beacon that an investigation is taking place that will look into multiple aspects of the alleged interference.
“Lawmakers will be paying particular attention to whether [National Security Council official Ben Rhodes] or other senior officials accused of misleading Congress and the American public about the Iran deal played a role in thwarting the Hezbollah investigation,” the Free Beacon reports. Citing sources with knowledge of the matter, the Free Beacon reports that congressional investigators “are already preparing letters to various U.S. government agencies in order to obtain greater information about the alleged interference.”
House Oversight Committee member and chairman of its National Security Subcommittee, Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), told WFB that lawmakers are examining evidence that could implicate top Obama administration officials:
I’ve long believed that the Obama administration could not have done any more to bend over backwards to appease the Iranian regime, yet news that the Obama administration killed the investigation into a billion-dollar drug ring that lined the terrorist group Hezbollah’s pockets in order to save its coveted Iran deal may very well take the cake. Hezbollah is a brutal terrorist group with American blood on its hands and it would be unconscionable for American policy to deliberately empower such a nefarious group. Congress will be investigating this thoroughly and my National Security subcommittee will be particularly interested in how such a decision came about and whether it was driven by key Iran deal architects such as Ben Rhodes.
Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) told WFB that he was not surprised by the alleged actions by the Obama administration and that an investigation is needed to determine the extent of what happened:
The report alleging the Obama Administration turned a blind eye and allowed Hezbollah to pump drugs into the United States to fund its terror campaigns in the Middle East is not surprising. Hampering the DEA’s investigation of Hezbollah would be emblematic of the previous administration’s fixation to strike a nuclear accord with Iran at any costs. This blind eye imperiled our efforts to combat Iran and its proxies’ malign behavior and left us with a cash-flush Iran on the warpath across the Middle East with a nuclear program legitimized by the [Iran deal]. Congress needs to investigate this report and do what the Obama Administration refused to do, severely increase pressure on Hezbollah and hold the terrorist group, and its benefactor Iran, accountable for their crimes.
In a statement, Dr. Peter Vincent Pry told The Daily Wire that Obama’s Iran deal is one of the greatest threats to U.S. national security and that the Obama administration put America’s safety at risk with their policy decisions:
“Project Cassandra” wittingly or not, in ancient Greek is named for “an unheeded prophet of disaster” — an apt description of the anti-drug program against Hezbollah sabotaged by the Obama Administration to protect their Iran nuclear deal, and an even more apt description of the Iran nuclear deal itself. The extraordinary sacrifices made by the Obama Administration for the Iran nuclear deal endangered U.S. homeland security by facilitating Hezbollah’s criminal and terrorist activities against the American people and against U.S. allies. For the Iran nuclear deal, the Obama Administration sacrificed U.S. national security interests by alienating our closest Middle Eastern allies, including Israel and the moderate Middle Eastern states. The Iran nuclear deal itself is among the greatest threats to U.S. national security, promoting the fiction that Iran’s advance toward nuclear weapons has been halted, albeit temporarily. In fact, we know nothing of the kind. The inspection regime for the Iran nuclear deal leaves uninspected Iranian military bases and suspected clandestine facilities — where Iran almost certainly continues building nuclear weapons. Indeed, there is substantial and compelling evidence Iran achieved nuclear weapons capability years before the Iran nuclear deal. Was the Iran nuclear deal really appeasement, a surrender to Iran’s geostrategic and economic interests, so Iran would not disclose the politically humiliating and terrifying fact that, on Obama’s watch, Iran built their Islamic Bomb?
Dr. Pry is the executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and director of the U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum and served as the chief of staff on the Congressional EMP Commission, the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission, the House Armed Services Committee, and the CIA.