The National Iranian American Council denies it engages in lobbying, yet the organization’s internal emails tell a different story. The group calls itself the National Iranian American Council, but it’s run by Trita Parsi, an Iranian national who didn’t even have a green card when he started the organization. NIAC claims to represent an Iranian-American community that may number a million or so, but just 500 people responded to the group’s most recent membership survey. And NIAC claims to support the Obama administration’s policy on Iran, but it coordinated a secret campaign to scuttle the appointment of Dennis Ross to serve as the administration’s Iran envoy. The emails show why that campaign was secret — “Our views on Ross may resemble Tehran’s,” Parsi wrote. There’s so much smoke here you wouldn’t be able to see the fire if it was right in front of your face. Which is why Senator Jon Kyl has asked Attorney General Eric Holder whether there is an investigation ongoing, and if not, why not? Politico reports on the written questions submitted by Kyl to Holder after Wednesday’s hearing:
It’s not every day that a United States senator asks the Attorney General to investigate whether a Washington-based organization is actually a front for a hostile regime. Holder is required by law to answer such questions, so we ought to have our answers soon enough, but at this point the evidence seems to indicate that NIAC has, at the very least, skirted federal lobbying disclosure laws. Of course this all leads to the more serious question of who, exactly, Parsi represents — but that is really a question for the FBI to answer.
