For about a year, the details of an investigation into President Biden’s Iran envoy, Robert Malley, have been shrouded in secrecy as top State Department officials have ducked questions about his suspension and the revocation of his security clearance. The sidelining of such a senior diplomat for so long without much public explanation is eyebrow-raising enough, but considering Malley’s accommodationist approach to Iran policy, the administration’s handling of the situation reeks of a damage-control operation.

Now Republican lawmakers are starting to get to the bottom of the matter, no thanks to Foggy Bottom. In a letter addressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week, Senator Jim Risch and Representative Michael McCaul said they’ve learned that Malley was suspended after he transferred classified documents to his personal email, then downloaded them to his personal cellphone. In the letter, which the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin brought to light in his column this week, Risch and McCaul wrote that a “hostile cyber actor” might then have obtained the documents by accessing Malley’s email or phone. They also wrote that it’s not clear to whom Malley wanted to transmit the documents.

They also posed 19 hard-hitting questions to Blinken, including basic requests for more information about the circumstances surrounding Malley’s suspension. Their questions are a summary of what State still hasn’t disclosed to Congress: the very fact of the hacking, the possibility that other high-ranking officials were compromised as a result, whether the FBI or Justice Department recommended criminal charges against Malley, and if any senior administration officials directly intervened to weigh in against pressing charges.

These are all straightforward questions to which the American public deserves to know the answers. After all, Malley hasn’t even left the administration; he’s on unpaid leave, but he still holds the title of Iran envoy, and the official who’s currently serving in the post is doing so in an acting capacity.

The answers might also shed light on the murkiness of the Biden team’s talks with Iran. In the early days of the Biden administration, when the White House claimed to believe that it could secure a “longer and stronger” nuclear deal with Iran, Malley led indirect talks to explore the possibility. He’s famously a proponent of directly engaging the regime and an opponent of the Trump-era “maximum pressure” campaign. And it came to light last year that one of his protégés, whom he had tried to bring to the State Department, once wrote to Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif to express his “patriotic duty” to Iran.

The biggest question here is the motive behind Malley’s decision to move classified documents to his personal device. What did he do with them? Did he send any to Iranian officials?

With the election six months away, State seems content to withhold answers to all of the above. Recall that Malley’s suspension came to light only through media reporting last June. State made no public announcement that he was on leave until it was pressed to do so by reporters. But it’s been several months since the latest revelations in this case have been made public through the media; the people who know the full story don’t appear to be talking. State, meanwhile, has resisted congressional-oversight efforts driving at full accountability. At this point, the only thing capable of prying answers loose might be a congressional subpoena.