Diplomat
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https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/never-tell-john-kerry-anything/
Never Tell John Kerry Anything
Buried fairly deep in the New York Times’ story about a leaked tape that shows Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, describing a rivalry with a powerful and widely revered military leader, Qasem Soleimani:
Former Secretary of State John Kerry informed [Zarif] that Israel had attacked Iranian interests in Syria at least 200 times, to his astonishment, Mr. Zarif said.
Was it official U.S. policy to inform the Iranian government — most certainly not an ally — about the covert military actions of the Israeli government — most certainly an ally? Was this an Obama administration initiative designed to win over the Iranians by spilling the beans on the Israelis, or was this John Kerry freelancing and just blurting out whatever he had been told in his classified briefings?
Just what was the objective of telling the Iranian government this? (The Iranians probably suspected the Israelis in all 200 or so cases, anyway.)
It's unclear to me when this meeting occurred. Was it when Kerry was SOS, or was he a private citizen.
I don't know which is more disturbing.
He's still the same cockroach who tossed his medals over the Whitehouse fence.
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“The Murdoch press is attempting to twist recent statements by Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to suggest that former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, now the White House’s special climate envoy, had communicated secrets to Iran regarding attacks by Israel against Iranian targets in the Syrian civil war.
The whole thing doesn’t make any sense, though — because Israeli attacks against Iranian targets in Syria have been publicly known and reported in the news media for years.
News sources outside Iran such as The New York Times, Reuters, and Al Jazeera had reported on Israeli strikes against Iranian targets in 2013. Such reports continued in 2018 — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even publicly acknowledged the strikes — and also to this very day. This isn’t some closely guarded international secret.
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The whole thing doesn’t make any sense, though — because Israeli attacks against Iranian targets in Syria have been publicly known and reported in the news media for years.
Let's assume the recording is valid, and according to the
Clinton News Move Along NetworkMedia Matters, it's common knowledge. Then why was the Iraqi foreign minister, with whom Kerry on a first name basis, surprised? I would think the foreign minister would be in on this common knowlegde? -
Read Geraghty's column in which he talks about the objections raised by MM - even before MM tweeted them.
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The intelligence community was aware of John Kerry's meetings and exchanges of information with Iran during the Trump administration, retired Army Lt. General Keith Kellogg, former chief of staff for the National Security Council under President Trump, said Friday.
Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate and former secretary of state, has denied a recent report that he informed Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that Israel targeted Iranian forces in Syria.
"Yeah, he did it all the time," said Kellogg, citing "the fact that he went over there, and the fact that he talked to Zarif to send a very, very strong countermessage to what we were trying to do out there."
Kellogg dismisses the defense that Kerry only shared information that was already public. "Well, you don't — even if it's public record, you never acknowledge classified operations," he said. "You don't. The press may get it, but you don't acknowledge it ... and now this is public record … you put it out there that that's what the Israelis were doing against the Iranians, that was all classified information. He would give it out to them and passes it on to them. And we read cables and we understand what's going on."
Kellogg explained how Kerry's unauthorized talks with Iran undercut Trump's diplomatic efforts.
"We talked about it in the Oval Office several times," he recalled. "It was not helpful what he was doing, because he was basically countering every message we were putting out there and trying to push them into some type of negotiation.
"I was in there many times when the president would reach out to people like Macron of France, he would reach out to Boris Johnson in U.K., and trying to get them to be an intermediary to talk to the Iranians to get us into some type of discussions. And we always had a pushback ... because we had people like Kerry out there talking to Zarif and others."
The Trump administration "knew what [Kerry] was doing," Kellogg said. "And the frustration we had is that it was basically acknowledged by everybody and nobody cared about it. I mean, if one of us had done that ..."
Michael Flynn was accused of the kind of actions Kerry now attributed to Kerry, and was a target of the Russian collusion investigation because of it, eventually being pardoned by President Trump.
The State Department declined a request for comment on the story.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/ceg_to_state_ig_kerry_zarif.pdf
Dear Acting Inspector General Shaw:
May 4, 2021
On April 25, 2021, the New York Times reported on an audiotape recording of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in which he talked about his interactions with former Secretary of State John Kerry. According to the report, Zarif said that Secretary Kerry told him, to Zarif’s “astonishment,” that Israel “had attacked Iranian interests in Syria at least 200 times.”1 Secretary Kerry’s role at the State Department came to an end in January of 2017 with the transition to the Trump administration; however, Secretary Kerry, during an appearance on the Hugh Hewitt radio show in September of 2018, admitted to meeting with Zarif “three or four times” since leaving office, and admitted to discussing the scrapped nuclear deal and other issues.2 It is unclear exactly when Secretary Kerry allegedly told Zarif of these military attacks, the nuclear deal, and other issues and whether these topics were a matter of public record at the time of discussion.
On April 29th, 2021, I joined eighteen of my Republican colleagues in a letter to President Biden conveying to him our grave concern over the allegations that Secretary Kerry potentially revealed sensitive information to Zarif. We asked the president to investigate these allegations and to remove Secretary Kerry from his national security team if these allegations were found to be true.
President Biden has the power to act and so do you. According to the State Department, pursuant to Section 4.4 of Executive Order 13526, it is standard practice for Secretaries of State to retain their clearances to access classified records from their tenure in office.3 As a holder of a security clearance, Secretary Kerry would be subject to serious obligations and restrictions to ensure that classified and otherwise sensitive information is not shared with foreign adversaries. Those obligations clearly extend to his interactions with Zarif and other foreign officials, whether in office or not.
In order to better understand Secretary Kerry’s obligations and responsibilities as a former Secretary of State with respect to information sharing about the military attacks, nuclear deal and other issues and to better understand if he violated any of those obligations, please answer the following no later than May 18, 2021:
- Did Secretary Kerry retain his security clearance after leaving office? If so, at what level was he cleared?
- Did Secretary Kerry ever use his security clearance to access sensitive and classified information, whether in written or verbal form, after he left office? If so, when, where, for what purpose and what was the topic at issue? Please provide all records relating to those requests for information.
- As a condition of his security clearance, was Secretary Kerry required to disclose his meetings with Zarif and other foreign officials to the U.S. Government? If so, did he make such disclosures and, if so, please provide all records relating to those disclosures.
- With respect to the “three or four meetings” Secretary Kerry had with Zarif, when and where were those meetings held and what was discussed? When and how did the State Department become aware of those meetings?
- Will you examine whether Secretary Kerry mishandled and improperly disclosed sensitive and classified information to Zarif with respect to the military attacks, nuclear deal, and other issues? If not, why not?
- Will you examine the sufficiency of all processes, procedures and guidelines set forth by the State Department to oversee and ensure that all security requirements are met by former officials that retain their security clearance?
Please send all unclassified material directly to the committee. In keeping with the
requirements of Executive Order 13526, if any of the responsive documents do contain classified information, please segregate all unclassified material within the classified documents, provide all unclassified information directly to the committee, and provide a classified addendum to the Office of Senate Security. Although the committee complies with all laws and regulations governing the handling of classified information, it is not bound, absent its prior agreement, by any handling restrictions.
