Multiple Congressional officials are confirming that Congress is launching an investigation into what may have been the worst scandal of the Obama administration, the effort to stop law enforcement investigation into the Iranian-backed terrorist group, Hezbollah.
From Free Beacon:
The Obama administration worked behind the scenes to thwart a decade-long Drug Enforcement Agency investigation into Hezbollah and its highly lucrative drug trade in Latin America, according to a report in Politico. These officials are believed to have run interference on the investigation in order to avoid upsetting Iran and jeopardizing the landmark nuclear accord.
Senior Obama officials in the Treasury and Justice Departments are said to have undermined the DEA’s investigation at multiple junctures in order to avoid angering Hezbollah’s patron Iran, which could have jeopardized the landmark nuclear agreement.
Congress is now taking steps to formally investigate the reports, which multiple sources described to the Free Beacon as part of a larger Obama administration effort to overlook Iran’s global terror operations in order to cement the nuclear deal.
Rep. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.), a member of the House Oversight Committee and chair of its National Security Subcommittee, said they are looking at top Obama officials and focusing on National Security Council official Ben Rhodes, the Iran Deal hatchet guy, to see if they misled Congress or attempted to thwart investigations.
“I’ve long believed that the Obama administration could not have done any more to bend over backwards to appease the Iranian regime, yet news that the Obama administration killed the investigation into a billion dollar drug ring that lined the terrorist group Hezbollah’s pockets in order to save its coveted Iran deal may very well take the cake,” DeSantis said.
“Hezbollah is a brutal terrorist group with American blood on its hands and it would be unconscionable for American policy to deliberately empower such a nefarious group,” he said.
But according to DEA agents, that’s exactly what happened. They say they derailed drug trafficking and money laundering efforts inside the United States. And it wasn’t a one-time thing, but a policy for years.
Hezbollah is believed to have been laundering at least $200 million a month just in the United States, according to the report.
When U.S. authorities were ready to make the case against Hezbollah’s most senior leadership, Obama administration officials allegedly “threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way,” according to inside sources who spoke to Politico about the situation.
The Obama-led effort to block the investigation was “a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” one source said. “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”
Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL), a chief national security voice said that these actions left the U.S. with a ‘cash-flush’ Iran on the “warpath across the Middle East with a nuclear program legitimized’ by the nuclear deal.
Not only did the Obama administration’s actions empower Hezbollah and Iran, but they’ve allowed them to become a threat in Latin America as well.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla), chair of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa and a member of the Foreign Affairs CommitteeHezbollah’s illicit operations in Latin America are growing and threaten the U.S homeland.
“The Obama administration started sucking up to Iran from Day 1, because they thought if they showed good faith the [Iranian] Supreme Leader would let Iranian diplomats negotiate with them,” according to a longtime congressional adviser who works on Middle East issues, including Iran.
The former administration “looked the other way at sanctions busting, fought Congress against new pressure, and did everything possible to slow roll enforcement,” the source said. “Meanwhile the Ben Rhodes echo chamber went into overdrive to sell that they were aggressively—that was the word they shopped around, ‘aggressively’—dealing with Iran. Now we know they were tearing down whatever parts of the federal government were still trying to stop Iran and its terrorists.”
Lawmakers are now urging President Donald Trump to take tougher action against Hezbollah in light of the Obama administration’s actions and are urging him to formally designate Hezbollah as a Transnational Criminal Organization (TCO) and as a Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficking Kingpin (SDNTK). They are also asking that there be an investigation under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
One senior congressional source told the Free Beacon that this was not just bad policy but also ‘potentially criminal’ and that Congress had a responsibility to investigate.
Congressional investigators are already preparing letters to various U.S. government agencies in order to obtain greater information about the alleged interference, according to those with knowledge of the matter. They have demanded that the DOJ turn over any relevant documents.
Things could now really be heating up for Ben Rhodes and crew, and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving group of people.
[Note: This post was written by Nick Arama]
