Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) launched a probe into Vice President Kamala Harris's national security adviser over his ties to an Iranian government influence network, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
In a Wednesday letter to Harris, Cotton and Stefanik asked the presumptive Democratic nominee to provide information about her adviser Phil Gordon's "connections to Ms. Ariane Tabatabai, a senior Department of Defense official who was reportedly involved in an Iranian government operation to expand Tehran's soft power in the United States."
Gordon, the letter notes, coauthored at least three opinion pieces with Tabatabai that argued against sanctions on the Iranian regime. Tabatabai was outed last year as an alleged member of an Iranian-run influence network that reported back to Tehran's foreign ministry.
Gordon's connections to Tabatabai are fueling concerns ahead of the 2024 election. Gordon is likely to play a central national security role in a Harris White House, and his connections to pro-Tehran advocacy groups suggest that renewed diplomacy with Iran will be a top foreign policy priority for Harris if she is elected.
Cotton and Stefanik are primarily concerned about Gordon's access to classified information and want to know if his ties to Tehran's enablers might disqualify him from holding a top-secret security clearance.
Gordon, the lawmakers note, published pieces with Tabatabai "blatantly promoting the Iranian regime's perspective and interests." Those pieces were published after the time Tabatabai was alleged to be working for the Iran Experts Initiative (IEI), an influence network that included several American policymakers associated with the Biden administration's former Iran envoy, Robert Malley, who was indefinitely suspended from his job amid allegations that he leaked classified information.
In a March 2020 article, Gordon and Tabatabai "claimed continued sanctions on Iran would create 'catastrophe' in the Middle East," Cotton and Stefanik wrote in their letter. In another piece, according to the lawmakers, Gordon and Tabatabai "wrote sanctions could lead to new Iranian efforts to 'lash out with attacks on its neighbors, and on Americans and American interests in the Middle East.' Each prediction was as wrong, as it was biased in favor of Tehran."
Gordon is also "closely associated with the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), another Iranian influence organization that allegedly collaborates with Tehran," according to the letter. NIAC has long faced allegations of serving as Iran's unregistered lobbying arm in America and was a player in the Obama administration's self-described pro-Tehran "echo chamber." Gordon spoke at NIAC's Leadership Conference in 2014 and 2016, before and after his time serving in the Obama administration as a Middle East hand working on the nuclear agreement with Iran.
"The Biden-Harris Administration is no stranger to Iran accommodators, appeasers, and accomplices," Cotton and Stefanik wrote. "Ms. Tabatabai remains gainfully employed in the Defense Department, helping oversee sensitive special operations. The FBI is investigating your former Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley for passing classified intelligence to Tehran and your Special Envoy Amos Hochstein allegedly passed intelligence about Israeli airstrikes to Hezbollah potentially as recently as this weekend."
The lawmakers pressed the vice president's office to come clean about Gordon's ties to the pro-Tehran advocacy world and about the nature of his relationship with Tabatabai.
"When you hired Mr. Gordon, were you aware of his connections with Ariane Tabatabai, the IEI, and the NIAC?" Cotton and Stefanik asked. "Did Mr. Gordon undergo security screening and receive a security clearance when you hired him? Does he have an active security clearance?"
The lawmakers also want to know if Harris initiated an investigation into Gordon after "Tabatabai's connections to the Iranian Foreign Ministry were revealed in September 2023."
"Did Mr. Gordon admit and report his ties to this individual?" they asked. "Have you or Mr. Gordon met with other members of the IEI, including Ali Vaez? Have you met with Ms. Tabatabai personally?"
"As the Vice President do you support Ms. Tabatabai's continued employment at the Department of Defense?" the lawmakers went on. "As the Vice President what specific actions will you take to address the issue of Iranian sympathizers, aside from yourself, within the Administration?"
In his 2014 speech to the NIAC, Gordon said that a "nuclear agreement [with Iran] could begin a multi-generational process that could lead to a new relationship between our countries."
NIAC continues to champion diplomacy with Iran and praised Harris in 2020 for committing to reenter the nuclear deal after former president Donald Trump abandoned it.
In a 2018 op-ed written with Malley, Gordon argued that "Iran sanctions won't advance U.S. interests."
"Far from convincing Tehran to cooperate, new U.S. measures are on track to achieve the exact opposite," Gordon and Malley wrote in Foreign Policy magazine. "In Trump's vision, sanctions are a quasi-magical, multi-purpose tool: They would force Iran back to the table to accept an improved nuclear deal, include restrictions on Tehran's ballistic missiles program, and give inspectors unlimited access."