At the center of an alleged plot to extort Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz is a proposal to nix reported sex trafficking charges in exchange for a $25 million fee to rescue former FBI agent Robert Levinson from Iran, a man believed by his family and U.S. intelligence officials to be dead.
Since Levinson’s disappearance in March 2007, he has been seen only in a hostage videotape recorded in 2010 and a handful of photographs, dressed in an orange jumpsuit while holding a placard.
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The U.S. government claimed at first that Levinson, an expert on Russian organized crime, had traveled to Iran’s Kish Island as a private investigator working on a cigarette smuggling case. Iran denied knowledge of his capture.
DOCUMENTS DETAIL WILD ALLEGED $25M GAETZ EXTORTION SCHEME
It wasn’t until 2013 that reports revealed he had traveled to Kish on a covert CIA mission to investigate Iranian money laundering.
In a statement last year, Levinson’s family said it believed he had died while in Iranian custody, based on information provided to it by the U.S. government.
But for years, a man named Bob Kent has claimed to know Levinson’s whereabouts, offering proof of life and lobbying the FBI and former Trump administration officials for money to retrieve him.
“For years, there’s been a steady parade of well-meaning, crazy, and even corrupt people who have tried to help the Levinson family or tried to use Bob’s case to help themselves,” Barry Meier, author of 2016’s Missing Man: The American Spy Who Vanished in Iran, told Newsweek in early 2019. “It’s enough to make your head spin.”
Kent, a former Air Force intelligence officer, according to his LinkedIn, had raised $100,000 from people “with CIA connections” pledging to pay his team in exchange for a proof-of-life package, with fingerprints, a blood sample, and a 41-second video clip, according to author Jeff Stein. A further $150,000 was promised for Levinson’s rescue.
As Kent was preparing to leave for the mission, it was withdrawn.
“I received a phone call informing me that the funding was withdrawn because the State Department and/or FBI threatened my sponsors,” he told Stein.
According to documents provided by Gaetz, Kent, and the Levinson family attorney, David McGee, an attorney at Beggs & Lane and a former federal prosecutor, have sought to extort millions of dollars from him in a bid to free Levinson from Iran.
The story surfaced Tuesday following a New York Times report that the Justice Department was investigating whether Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and whether he had paid for her to travel with him. Gaetz had denied the charge repeatedly, telling Axios that he “was not a target but a subject of an investigation regarding sexual conduct with women.”
The lawmaker then took to Twitter to claim his family was being extorted for $25 million by the people pushing the allegations about him to the media and that these people were the subjects of an FBI investigation. Shortly thereafter came a confusing interview with Fox News prime-time host Tucker Carlson that left even the Republican-friendly interviewer bewildered.
A screenshot shared with the Washington Examiner of a purported message to Gaetz’s father, a former Florida state senator, suggests “a plan that can make [Matt Gaetz’s] future legal and political problems go away.”
READ: FULL DOCUMENTS MATT GAETZ SAYS BACKS UP EXTORTION CLAIM
The Levinson case has plagued negotiators for more than a decade.
Former President Donald Trump had pledged to return American hostages from Iran while campaigning for president in 2016, and his reputation as a deal-maker, Levinson’s family hoped, would help secure Levinson’s release.
The family had been stunned when one year before leaving office, former President Barack Obama had announced that five American hostages were freed in an arrangement Obama called a “one-time gesture.”
Wendy Sherman, the lead U.S. negotiator in the Iran nuclear talks and now President Joe Biden’s nominee for deputy secretary of state, began negotiations aimed at retrieving Levinson and other prisoners in 2014, aided by Brett McGurk, a top national security official under Trump and Biden and a senior State Department official at the time.
Whether Levinson was still alive was unknown, but according to a Reuters investigation, he was a priority for FBI agents interrogating Iranian’s suspected of violating sanctions.
“It’s like their first question when they come into the room: ‘Where’s Levinson?’” a source with direct knowledge of the inquiries said.
The report alleges the United States was pressured during negotiations for the eventual prisoner swap to exchange Levinson for Ali Reza Asgari, a top Iranian general, who was reported to have fled the country with CIA help.
The U.S. balked at this, according to reports, and Iran continued to deny detaining Levinson.
Trump slammed Obama as soft on Iran, pledging a hard line on Iranian hostage-taking and tweeting, “This doesn’t happen if I’m president!”
Several years later, Levinson’s whereabouts remain a mystery.
“I don’t accept that he’s dead,” Trump said during a coronavirus task force briefing last year. “It’s not looking great, but I won’t accept that he’s dead.”
The Biden administration has vowed to continue pressing Iran for answers.
“Yesterday, Secretary Blinken spoke with the Levinson family and promised to press the Iranian government to provide credible answers to what happened to Bob Levinson,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters earlier this month.
“Today marks 14 years since beloved husband and father Bob Levinson was abducted in Iran,” Blinken wrote in a tweet. “I was honored to speak with Bob’s family and promised to press Iran for the answers that they deserve and for the freedom of all Americans unjustly held by Iran.”
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Kent did not respond to a request for comment.
