House Republicans are preparing to subpoena the State Department for documents about the suspension of Robert Malley — and compel testimony from the former Iran special envoy after his security clearance was quietly revoked earlier this year.
The House Oversight Committee is requesting information and a personal interview with Malley to determine the circumstances under which he was placed on unpaid leave, a panel spokesman confirmed to The Post.
The Oversight Committee is also asking for information about a security clearance granted to one of Malley’s advisers, Ariane Tabatabai, who participated in a program with Tehran’s Foreign Ministry to influence nuclear negotiations with the US, according to leaked documents.
Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) may also subpoena Tabatabai as part of the committee’s probe.
A senior aide on the GOP-led committee told Semafor, which first reported on the expected subpoena, that lawmakers have been unable to learn much about Malley’s ouster, even after the FBI opened an investigation into the envoy’s conduct.
A State Department spokesperson told The Post that the agency does not comment on congressional correspondence as a general matter and declined to share further details “due to privacy considerations,” confirming only that Malley “remains on leave.”
Matthew Miller, the department’s spokesman, told reporters in response to a question during his Sept. 26 briefing that lawmakers had “been briefed adequately” on the matter.
“Do we really have to go to these lengths? Can’t they say this isn’t true?” a Republican senior aide told The Post Monday. “I find this administration to be very quick to deny those accusations that they find ridiculous. I guess this one’s not so ridiculous.”
The request for documents follows a Wall Street Journal report that Iran helped Hamas plan its Oct. 7 terror attack that slaughtered more than 1,300 people in southern Israel, including women and children as well as at least 29 American citizens.
In the largest offensive against the Jewish state since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Hamas terrorists launched thousands of rockets and a multi-front invasion from the Gaza Strip.
The jihadists took 199 hostages back into the Hamas-controlled territory after paragliding into an Israeli music festival to brutalize citizens and carrying out a campaign of carnage against families at kibbutzim near the Gaza border.
President Biden spoke Friday with the families of at least 14 Americans who remain missing, some of whom are confirmed to be hostages.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war on Hamas following the attack, launching airstrikes ahead of an anticipated ground invasion while jihadists prevent citizens from fleeing the territory.
Israel has also ordered all civilians to evacuate the northern part of Gaza and make their way south.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), a member of the House panel, told The Post last week that Malley deserved “extensive scrutiny” for any policy decisions he made that may have allowed for the bloodshed.
“Rob Malley deserves extensive scrutiny — yesterday, today and tomorrow,” Issa said of the report that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps coordinated and signed off on the atrocities.
“These reports could not be more concerning, and they hint at what could be the worst State Department scandal since Alger Hiss.”
Malley also served as a Middle East foreign policy adviser under former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — but was briefly dropped from the latter’s 2008 campaign for being in talks with Hamas, the New York Times reported.
He was also an architect of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which briefly waived some sanctions on Iran but was abandoned three years later by former President Donald Trump.
Congressional Republicans and foreign policy hawks have criticized the Biden administration for having a “permissive” stance toward Iran that has allowed tens of billions of dollars to flow to Tehran-affiliated terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
They have taken particular issue with the recent unfreezing of $6 billion in Iranian assets as part of a prisoner exchange executed last month.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan declined to confirm Tehran’s involvement in the bloodshed during a briefing last week but said Iran was “complicit” given its large “funding for the military wing of Hamas.”
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has also said that the $6 billion set aside for Iran has not been accessed yet.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian met Saturday with Hamas’ political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Doha, Qatar, where the terrorist group’s leadership has been holed up for more than a decade.