Congressional Republicans are calling for answers on the Obama administration’s reported efforts to derail an initiative that tracked Hezbollah’s international web of criminal activities, efforts that former officials said were fueled in large part out of a desire to secure the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran.
Lawmakers’ calls were triggered by a Politico report published earlier this week, in which former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials said that the Obama administration hobbled a 2008 initiative known as Project Cassandra, which mapped Hezbollah’s drug trafficking and money laundering efforts. Obama officials hampered or rejected agents’ requests to open investigations into or arrest figures connected with the Iran-backed militia, former Project Cassandra members told Politico.
Republicans in both chambers of Congress are now pressing for more information about the Obama administration’s reported efforts to impede Project Cassandra for the sake of securing the nuclear deal.
Nebraska senator Ben Sasse, in a letter to the State, Justice, and Treasury Departments, described the Obama administration’s reported attempts to hinder counter-Hezbollah efforts as a “colossal mistake.”
“If the Obama administration failed to use the authorities that Congress has authorized to stop Hezbollah terrorists and their associates from pouring cocaine onto our streets to fund terrorism and acquire weapons of mass destruction, it was a colossal mistake,” he wrote. “If the administration did so in order to shore up its foolish nuclear deal with Iran, it was a mistake of historical proportions.”
“The American people deserve answers to these disturbing allegations.”
Sasse requested any documents referring to potential prosecutorial, financial, or diplomatic actions that were considered, but not taken, against Hezbollah from 2009-2017, as well as the number of prosecutions or extradition requests for Hezbollah-linked individuals that were declined during that time period.
He also requested a minimum estimate of the money laundered by Hezbollah because of the Obama administration’s declined prosecutions, and a minimum estimate of the amount of drugs trafficked into the U.S. because of the declined prosecutions.
Texas senator Ted Cruz described the Politico report as “stunning” shortly after its publication, and in a tweet called for the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on potential obstruction of justice.
Republicans on the House side also want answers.
Congressman Ron DeSantis, chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on national security, and Ohio congressman Jim Jordan wrote to Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday requesting a range of documents, including those related to several individuals that former officials quoted in the Politico report say the Obama administration failed to arrest.
“The committee has been conducting oversight of the U.S. government’s actions surrounding the nuclear deal reached with Iran for more than two years,” DeSantis and Jordan wrote, before citing the allegations of DEA officials contained in the Politico report. “We have a responsibility to evaluate whether these allegations are true, and if so, did the administration undermine U.S. law enforcement and compromise national security.”
