Warren, Sanders Hosting Call With Pro-Iran Group

By
Jordan Riddle
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Senator Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will be taking their search for votes to the advocacy group National Iranian American Council (NIAC) in an event planned this week where they will join other legislators as they address the controversial group that has pushed for strategies that bolster the Iranian regime.

The NIAC has a record of pushing for strategies that allow the Iranian regime to grow in power and in some cases advocated heavily for direct release of $150 billion to Iran that can be freely used is more attacks on U.S. embassies and bases.

Sanders and Warren will be visiting the NIAC with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Barbara Lee (D-CA). They will assuredly continue their criticism of President Trump eliminating Qassem Soleimani and push the narrative that if America bows to Iran, they will stop being violent.

Here is the announcement on Twitter.

The Washington Free Beacon reported on the tour stop this week.

NIAC has deep ties to Iran’s regime, including senior officials like Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Zarif worked closely with NIAC founder Trita Parsi, who, in turn, consulted with the Obama administration.

Parsi lobbied Congress against sanctions on Iran in 2013 and met with Obama administration officials at the White House dozens of times leading up to the nuclear deal’s signing in 2015. Multiple U.S. officials and senior congressional sources informed the Washington Free Beacon that Parsi helped the White House craft its messaging as it tried to sell the nuclear deal to the public. The NIAC chief met with Rhodes, among other top officials, during multiple visits throughout the Obama era.

Rhodes delivered a keynote speech at the 2016 NIAC leadership conference.

NIAC was ordered to pay more than $180,000 in 2013 to the legal defense fund of Hassan Daioleslam, an Iranian-American writer, after a failed defamation lawsuit. Daioleslam had accused NIAC of failing to disclose its clandestine lobbying efforts to undo sanctions on Tehran, the Free Beacon previously reported. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said Parsi’s work was “not inconsistent with the idea that he was first and foremost an advocate for the regime.”

Warren and Sanders have been supportive of the “appeasement strategy” that Obama used throughout his presidency. This approach has lead to Iran building facilities to house nuclear weapons and funding terrorism across the world.