The Observer: Trump team hired spy firm for ‘dirty ops’ on Iran arms deal

Aides to the US President Donald Trump hired an Israeli private intelligence agency to organize a “dirty ops” campaign against key people from the Obama administration who helped negotiate the Iran nuclear deal, according to the British news outlet The Observer. As part of an effort to discredit the deal, the Trump administration officials contacted private investigators in May last year to “get dirt” on Ben Rhodes, who had been one of Barack Obama’s top national security advisers, and Colin Kahl, deputy assistant to Obama, the new outlet revealed. The revelations come days before Trump’s May 12 deadline for either scrapping or continuing to obey the international deal restricting Iran’s nuclear program. A foreign secretary involved in earlier efforts to restrict Iranian weapons, Jack Straw, was quoted saying that these were “extraordinary and appalling allegations” but they also reflect a “high level of desperation” by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – “not so much to discredit the deal but to undermine those around it.” According to The Guardian, sources said that officials linked to Trump’s team contacted investigators days after Trump visited Tel Aviv a year ago, his first foreign tour as US president. Trump reportedly promised Netanyahu that “Iran would never have nuclear weapons.” According to the documents seen by The Observer, investigators contracted by the private intelligence agency were told to dig into the personal lives and political careers of Rhodes and Kahl. Among other things they were looking at “personal relationships, any involvement with Iran-friendly lobbyists,” and if they had “benefited personally or politically” from the peace deal. In an effort to ascertain whether t Rhodes and Kahl had sullied any protocols by giving out sensitive intelligence, investigators were also apparently told to contact prominent Iranian Americans as well as “pro-deal journalists” – from the New York Times, MSNBC television, the Atlantic, Vox website and Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper among others – who had frequent contact with the two. Although sources have confirmed that contact and an initial plan of attack was provided to private investigators by representatives of Trump, it is not clear how much work was actually undertaken, for how long or what became of any material unearthed, added The Guardian.