At least three reported members of a covert Iranian government-controlled influence network visited the Biden White House on numerous occasions for meetings with senior U.S. officials, records show.
The trio, Dina Esfandiary and Ali Vaez of the global International Crisis Group think tank, plus now-Pentagon official Ariane Tabatabai, was outed through the release of leaked Iranian government emails last year as being linked to a network called the Iran Experts Initiative, a project of Iran’s foreign ministry that helped push Tehran talking points in the United States and Europe.
According to a Washington Examiner review of White House visitor logs, Esfandiary, Vaez, and Tabatabai headed to the White House a combined 10 times between April 2022 and December 2023 — a fact that foreign policy experts, watchdog groups, and congressional sources say shows the Biden administration has granted those with concerning Iran ties apparent access to the halls of power.
Esfandiary, Vaez, and Tabatabai share connections to Robert Malley, President Joe Biden‘s special envoy to Iran who was placed on unpaid leave in June of last year amid a federal investigation into his handling of classified information, Semafor reported. Malley, who saw his security clearance revoked, was the Obama administration’s lead negotiator in 2015 for the heavily scrutinized Iran nuclear deal that waived sanctions for Iran — the leading state sponsor of terrorism.
Malley, until 2021, led the International Crisis Group, the think tank that counts Vaez and Esfandiary as senior advisers. Tabatabai was a diplomat for a period on the Malley-led Iran nuclear negotiations team upon Biden taking office that year.
“There’s two things that are problematic here,” said Richard Goldberg, an ex-White House National Security Council member who worked on the Iran portfolio.
“One, it’s troubling that people with a track record of being very close to the regime and potentially sympathetic to the regime in Tehran have open-door access to the administration,” Goldberg, now a senior adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, told the Washington Examiner. “Two, it’s even more troubling that, to this day, we have no answers on the Malley investigation and where it’s leading.”
News of the Biden White House meetings with the Iran Experts Initiative-tied individuals comes days after Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel, a key U.S. ally that is now weighing its response. But it also comes as Republican lawmakers slam the Biden White House for waiving sanctions on Iran, a decision they worry “makes restricted Iranian funds more accessible to the Ayatollah’s regime, at a time when Iranian-backed aggression in the region is at a peak.” Until now, Iran has long relied on terrorist faction proxies that it funds, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, to carry out attacks on the Jewish state.
To the ire of GOP lawmakers, Tabatabai, the Iranian-born Pentagon aide who was reported to be a member of the Iran Experts Initiative, retained her security clearance late last year after an internal Pentagon review. She was dubbed “an Iranian spy” by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA). And on at least two occasions in prior years, Tabatabai “checked in” with the foreign ministry in Iran before attending policy events and has urged the U.S. to align with Iran while breaking Israeli ties, according to reports.
White House visitor logs reviewed by the Washington Examiner list three entries for Tabatabai between January 2023 and December 2023, including a meeting with diplomat Laura Rosenberger in the West Wing. Rosenberger just recently departed the National Security Council, where she was special assistant to the president and senior director for China and Taiwan.
The point person for Tabatabai’s other visits was Vanessa Millones, special assistant to the president for presidential personnel and an Obama White House alumna, according to records. Those 2023 meetings were in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the records show.
“The Biden administration’s collusion with Iran is arguably the most ignored political story in the last two years,” a senior GOP congressional aide told the Washington Examiner. “There’d be wall-to-wall mainstream media news coverage if a Republican administration had been crazy enough to engage with, say, a Russian influence network in the way that the Biden administration actually has engaged with an Iranian influence network.”
The Defense Department did not return a request for comment. Tabatabai and Esfandiary were touted as “the core group” of the covert Iran Experts Initiative in 2014 by Iranian official Saeed Khatibzadeh, a former spokesman for the country’s foreign ministry, Semafor reported.
In June 2022, Esfandiary visited the White House on back-to-back days in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, according to visitor logs. Her point person was Stephanie Hallett, the deputy chief of mission for the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, a spokesperson for the International Crisis Group said Esfandiary “frequently meets with government officials, offering her insights and analysis.”
“Over the past decade, Esfandiary has met with officials from numerous U.S. administrations to discuss matters concerning Iran, the Gulf, and Middle East policy,” the spokesperson said. “She has also met with diplomats and officials from across Europe and the Middle East. The discussions included topics such as Middle East security, Gulf Arab relations, and Iran’s relations, including ways to address the Iranian regime’s regional power projection.”
Vaez, the International Crisis Group adviser, has visited the Biden White House at least five times, the Washington Free Beacon reported, noting that the meetings were likely with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk, the Biden administration’s Middle East and North Africa coordinator.
The think tank said last October that Vaez “has met with officials from three successive U.S. administrations to discuss Iran policy, just as he’s engaged with European diplomats and officials from across the Middle East.”
Nevertheless, the Biden administration should be transparent and disclose information about its various meetings with the Iran Experts Initiative-tied individuals, particularly given heightened national security concerns over recent attacks on Israel, said Tom Jones, the director of the American Accountability Foundation watchdog group.
“Whether it’s personnel actions or diplomacy, the Biden administration’s close ties to the Mullah’s enablers should trouble everyone,” Jones said.
The White House did not return a request for comment.
