Regime change group scores meetings with Trump’s Iran team
A lobbyist for the Iranian opposition met with the State Department’s Iran policy chief as well as top National Security Council and defense officials earlier this year. The latest disclosure form from former US special envoy for nuclear nonproliferation Robert Joseph shows the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) paid him $90,000 to push the group’s regime-change agenda in the six months since he was hired in January. Joseph disclosed two meetings with US Special Representative for IranBrian Hook in March and May and a June meeting with Under Secretary of Defense for Policy John Rood, Joseph’s successor in President George W. Bush’s State Department. Joseph also met with Richard Goldberg, a former staffer for ex-Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., in January soon after Goldberg joined the National Security Council from his perch at the hawkishFoundation for Defense of Democracies. Goldberg has been one of the mainadvocates for ending US waivers for purchases of Iranian oil. Joseph also held three meetings with “think tank representatives” in April and May, but did not identify them or their employer.
Joseph attended the NCRI’s mass gathering last month in Ashraf, Albania, along with other former US officials, but did not disclose any free travel there. Ashraf is home to some 3,000 members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, the main faction under the NCRI umbrella, who were relocated from Iraqafter the US invasion. Tehran considers them terrorists. The meetings come as the Donald Trump administration continues to send mixed signals about its Iran policy, with the president insisting that he’s “not looking for regime change” even as his Treasury Department last month slapped sanctions on Iran’s chief diplomat,Mohammad Javad Zarif
Separately, former Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., and his Rosemont Associates firm disclosed getting paid $60,000 for NCRI lobbying in the second quarter of 2019. Torricelli notably lobbied the State Department regarding the MEK’s resettlement in Albania.
Regime change group scores meetings with Trump’s Iran team
A lobbyist for the Iranian opposition met with the State Department’s Iran policy chief as well as top National Security Council and defense officials earlier this year. The latest disclosure form from former US special envoy for nuclear nonproliferation Robert Joseph shows the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) paid him $90,000 to push the group’s regime-change agenda in the six months since he was hired in January. Joseph disclosed two meetings with US Special Representative for IranBrian Hook in March and May and a June meeting with Under Secretary of Defense for Policy John Rood, Joseph’s successor in President George W. Bush’s State Department. Joseph also met with Richard Goldberg, a former staffer for ex-Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., in January soon after Goldberg joined the National Security Council from his perch at the hawkishFoundation for Defense of Democracies. Goldberg has been one of the mainadvocates for ending US waivers for purchases of Iranian oil. Joseph also held three meetings with “think tank representatives” in April and May, but did not identify them or their employer.
Joseph attended the NCRI’s mass gathering last month in Ashraf, Albania, along with other former US officials, but did not disclose any free travel there. Ashraf is home to some 3,000 members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, the main faction under the NCRI umbrella, who were relocated from Iraqafter the US invasion. Tehran considers them terrorists. The meetings come as the Donald Trump administration continues to send mixed signals about its Iran policy, with the president insisting that he’s “not looking for regime change” even as his Treasury Department last month slapped sanctions on Iran’s chief diplomat,Mohammad Javad Zarif
Separately, former Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., and his Rosemont Associates firm disclosed getting paid $60,000 for NCRI lobbying in the second quarter of 2019. Torricelli notably lobbied the State Department regarding the MEK’s resettlement in Albania.
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