Rob Malley, who serves as President Joe Biden’s envoy on Iran, has been placed on leave without pay and his security clearance has been suspended pending an investigation into mishandling classified materials.
CNN reported Thursday:
Rob Malley, the US special envoy on Iran, has been placed on leave without pay, which occurred after his security clearance was suspended earlier this year amid an investigation into his handling of classified material, multiple sources told CNN.
A US official said that Malley’s clearance was suspended amid a State Department diplomatic security investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information. Another source familiar with the matter said he was placed on unpaid leave on Thursday afternoon.
“I have been informed that my security clearance is under review. I have not been provided any further information, but I expect the investigation to be resolved favorably and soon. In the meantime, I am on leave,” Malley told CNN.
Malley has a long and controversial history, and has long been suspected of being too sympathetic to Iran and to radical Islamic terrorists in general. As Breitbart News reported upon his appointment by Biden in 2021:
Malley is a radical with a long record of foreign policy failure.
In 2008, the Obama campaign booted Malley after it emerged he met with Palestinian terror group Hamas. In 2015, he was brought into the Obama administration to work on the hopelessly weak Iran nuclear deal. Malley was then named as ISIS “czar,” leading Obama’s hapless effort.
Malley appeared to learned nothing from his mistakes. In 2018, when President Trump supported protests against the Iranian regime, Malley joined the critics who said Trump should “be quiet.”
Upon his appointment, Biden sent Malley to Vienna in a largely fruitless effort to revive negotiations with Iran toward a new Iran deal. The Iranian regime strung him along, biding time while enriching more uranium and building more weapons technology. It is not clear whether he is involved in a recently proposed “mini-deal.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
