Former Official: Obama Admin ‘Systematically Disbanded’ Units Investigating Iran’s Terrorism Financing Networks
Posted: June 9, 2017 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Foreign Policy, Global, History, Politics, Self Defense, Terrorism, White House | Tags: Canada, DC, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Memorial Day, Obama, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, United States Department of State, United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Washington 1 CommentSusan Crabtree reports: The Obama administration “systematically disbanded” law enforcement investigative units across the federal government focused on disrupting Iranian, Syrian, and Venezuelan terrorism financing networks out of concern the work could cause friction with Iranian officials and scuttle the nuclear deal with Iran, according to a former U.S. official who spent decades dismantling terrorist financial networks.
David Asher, who previously served as an adviser to Gen. John Allen at the Defense and State Departments, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee Thursday that top officials across several key law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the Obama administration “systematically disbanded” law enforcement activities targeting the terrorism financing operations of Iran, Hezbollah, and Venezuela in the lead-up to and during the nuclear negotiations with Tehran.
“Senior leadership, presiding, directing, and overseeing various sections [of these agencies] and portions of the U.S. intelligence community systematically disbanded any internal or external stakeholder action that threatened to derail the administration’s policy agenda focused on Iran,” he testified.
Asher now serves on the board of directors of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies‘ Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance and is an adjunct fellow at the Center for New American Security, two national security think tanks.
He attributed the motivation for decisions to dismantle the investigative units to “concerns about interfering with the Iran deal,” a reference to the nuclear deal forged between the U.S., five other world powers, and Iran during the final years of the Obama administration.
As a result, “several top cops” retired and the U.S. government lost their years of expertise. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] AEI LIVE STREAM: Understanding ISIS and its Followers #BLSAEI
Posted: January 24, 2017 Filed under: Education, Mediasphere, Religion, Terrorism, Think Tank, War Room | Tags: Allen Murabayashi, D.C., DC, Donald Trump, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, President of the United States, Syria, The Pentagon, United States, Washington 1 Comment
In March 2015, The Atlantic magazine ran a cover story titled “What ISIS Really Wants.” The author was Graeme Wood, journalist, correspondent for The Atlantic, and lecturer at Yale University. His reporting and research on ISIS has now become a book, “The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State” (Random House, 2016), which examines the origins, plans, and followers of ISIS.
[Order the book “The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State“ from Amazon.com]
In this Bradley Lecture, Mr. Wood will discuss his firsthand encounters with ISIS’s true believers, which will help clear away common misunderstandings about this distinctive variety of Islam. Please join us for Mr. Wood’s first public lecture on the book in Washington, DC. A reception and book signing will follow. Read the rest of this entry »
Analysis: Washington is Divided Because it has Abandoned Federalism
Posted: August 15, 2014 Filed under: History, Mediasphere, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: 2014 Election, DC, Mississippi, scandal, Senate 2014, Washington, Washington Examiner Leave a commentWashington is divided because it has abandoned federalism http://t.co/TmqxpvTxPd pic.twitter.com/pT2Wr0pRiZ
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) August 15, 2014