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Politico: Obama Let Hezbollah Run Cocaine Into The US For Iran Deal — And More
Hotair.com ^ | 12-18-17 | Ed Morrissey

Posted on 12/18/2017 9:10:27 AM PST by DeweyCA

Did the current administration “collude” with Russia? So far no evidence at all has emerged to support that hypothesis, but Politico’s Josh Meyer digs deep into another curious set of circumstances in the Obama White House and its own operations with a foreign power. Perhaps the media will start asking whether the previous administration colluded with Iran to let terrorists and drug dealers go free in order to score one of the worst deals ever in international relations.

Before Barack Obama decided to pursue the nuclear deal with Iran, the DEA had a major operation called Project Cassandra. This operation had identified Hezbollah as a major supplier of cocaine to the US and other countries, along with its usual terrorist activities on behalf of its sponsors in Tehran. The DEA and FBI had built criminal cases against major players in Hezbollah’s drug and arms networks, succeeding in getting sealed indictments and finding witnesses for prosecution.

And then the Obama administration stepped in to drain it of all resources, just to protect its deal with Iran:

One Obama-era Treasury official, Katherine Bauer, in little-noticed written testimony presented last February to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, acknowledged that “under the Obama administration … these [Hezbollah-related] investigations were tamped down for fear of rocking the boat with Iran and jeopardizing the nuclear deal.”

As a result, some Hezbollah operatives were not pursued via arrests, indictments, or Treasury designations that would have blocked their access to U.S. financial markets, according to Bauer, a career Treasury official, who served briefly in its Office of Terrorist Financing as a senior policy adviser for Iran before leaving in late 2015. And other “Hezbollah facilitators” arrested in France, Colombia, Lithuania have not been extradited — or indicted — in the U.S., she wrote. …

Asher, for one, said Obama administration officials expressed concerns to him about alienating Tehran before, during and after the Iran nuclear deal negotiations. This was, he said, part of an effort to “defang, defund and undermine the investigations that were involving Iran and Hezbollah,” he said.

“The closer we got to the [Iran deal], the more these activities went away,” Asher said. “So much of the capability, whether it was special operations, whether it was law enforcement, whether it was [Treasury] designations — even the capacity, the personnel assigned to this mission — it was assiduously drained, almost to the last drop, by the end of the Obama administration.”

Cassandra turned out to be an ironic code name for the operation. In Greek mythology, Cassandra, the daughter of King Priam of Troy, was doomed to utter accurate prophecies that went unbelieved by all who heard them. This years-long effort to identify Hezbollah’s drug and arms operations and to find their financial resources ended up going the way of Cassandra’s prophecies, too — being utterly ignored despite their truth. (In fact, the project name derived specifically, if indirectly, from this myth.)

Not all of these cases involved international operations, either. The DEA and FBI found Hezbollah operations in the US, and yet the Department of Justice refused to prosecute the cases:

In Philadelphia, the FBI-led task force had spent two years bolstering its case claiming that Safieddine had overseen an effort to purchase 1,200 military-grade assault rifles bound for Lebanon, with the help of Kelly and the special narcoterrorism prosecutors in New York.

Now, they had two key eyewitnesses. One would identify Safieddine as the Hezbollah official sitting behind a smoked-glass barricade who approved the assault weapons deal. And an agent and prosecutor had flown to a remote Asian hotel and spent four days persuading another eyewitness to testify about Safieddine’s role in an even bigger weapons and drugs conspiracy, multiple former law enforcement officials confirmed to POLITICO.

Convinced they had a strong case, the New York prosecutors sent a formal prosecution request to senior Justice Department lawyers in Washington, as required in such high-profile cases. The Justice Department rejected it, and the FBI and DEA agents were never told why, those former officials said.

According to Meyer’s sources, Hezbollah has a lot of tentacles in the US, including in rental car companies on the legal side, and a booming cocaine smuggling and distribution business on the illegal side. It should have been easy to pursue those cases in US courts. And yet the Obama administration wanted nothing to do with cutting off Hezbollah’s economic underpinnings in the US, even while listing them as a terrorist organization.

All of this was in service to a deal that did nothing for American security but allowed Iran to pursue its hegemonic policies in the Middle East unfettered. Hezbollah has been Tehran’s proxy for decades, including among its many crimes the bombing of Marines in Lebanon during a peacekeeping mission. They are a key part of Iran’s strategy to link through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean and to dominate the Sunni Arab states in the Arabian peninsula — and of course to threaten Israel.

That policy was bad enough. The politicization of the DoJ to allow terrorists to operate unfettered in the US is nothing short of unconscionable. We’ve allowed ourselves to get distracted by the Russia story long enough. It’s long past time for Congress to take a very hard look at the Iran deal and the Obama administration’s operations in support of it. Let’s not allow this to be yet another Cassandra moment.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Egypt; Israel; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; Syria; US: Massachusetts; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 2015; 201702; 201712; armssmuggling; armssmugling; asher; bauer; blackkk; blackliesmatter; blacklivesmatter; blm; blow; carrentals; cassandra; cocaine; columbia; dea; disaster; domesticterrorism; drugs; drugsmuggling; egypt; erdogan; fbi; france; gwot; hezbollah; hezbos; hizbollah; hizbullah; hizbullahhezbos; imadmugniyeh; iran; irandeal; iranianwmd; iraq; israel; jamescomey; johnkerry; joshmeyer; katherinebauer; kurdistan; lebanon; levinson; lithuania; massachusetts; mediawingofthednc; mediterranean; moneylaundering; obama; opcassandra; operationcassandra; partisanmediashill; partisanmediashills; peterstrzok; politico; projectcassandra; receptayyiperdogan; rentalcars; robertmueller; safieddine; slowrolled; stonewalled; syria; treasury; turkey; uighur; uighurs; uyghur; uyghurs; waronterror; wmd; wod; wot; yemen
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To: ClearCase_guy
bottom line, as with all vices, if people would return to the 10 commandments so many of our ills would not exist...

we have to be a righteous people...we have to be a people that don't succumb to drugs/porn...

21 posted on 12/18/2017 9:38:46 AM PST by cherry
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To: DeweyCA

14,000 words that people won’t read...


22 posted on 12/18/2017 9:39:13 AM PST by choctaw man (Good ole Andrew Jackson, or You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma...)
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To: BenLurkin

My thoughts exactly. If Politico is starting to see the light, maybe the tide is turning.

A lot of us on FR have been saying that Obama was on the team of the bad guys. At this point this is known to include drug dealers, terrorists, and Iran. At the same time, the political-media complex is now known to have known but hidden sexual crimes against women; it’s only a matter of time before the crimes against children will be exposed as well.

If America cares about ANYTHING of value, she needs to see justice done so this stuff stops. If she refuses, then she will go to the dung-heap where she (in this condition) belongs.

The lawlessness of the US government poses an existential threat to this nation, her Constitution, her people, and the rest of the world. Just as some of us have been saying for a long, long time - even while the “cool kids” ridiculed us for being “crazy conspiracists”. If Politico is waking up, hopefully the rest of the country will too, soon.

My prayer for the last month or so has been for justice and for exposure of the evil so that every person in America faces the day of decision with no excuse for being deceived.


23 posted on 12/18/2017 9:39:17 AM PST by butterdezillion
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To: Lurkinanloomin
We didn't ignore it.

We were ignored for it.

24 posted on 12/18/2017 9:39:20 AM PST by rawcatslyentist ("All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing")
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To: Diogenesis
... when they were not running guns, WMD, slaves, terrorists, incurable diseases, murder of witnesses, murder of judges, treason for any quid pro quo, uranium, ...

I smell FBI facilitation. Just a smell. Not knowledge.

25 posted on 12/18/2017 9:39:34 AM PST by Stentor
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To: DeweyCA; Liz; SunkenCiv
The DEA and FBI found Hezbollah operations in the US, and yet the Department of Justice refused to prosecute the cases...

ping

26 posted on 12/18/2017 9:39:45 AM PST by GOPJ (EVERY hellhole in the world is run by self appointed 'elites'...think about THAT FBI traitors.)
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To: DeweyCA

What in the actual effing eff?????????

And from Politico?

Are pigs flying?


27 posted on 12/18/2017 9:42:00 AM PST by Mr. K (No consequence of repealing Obamacare is worse than Obamacare itself.)
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To: rawcatslyentist

Both parties colluded to violate the Constitution.
They both wanted to run ineligible candidates.

You are correct.
Anyone who spoke up was subjected to Alinsky tactics.


28 posted on 12/18/2017 9:46:42 AM PST by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here of Citizen Parents-Know Islam, No Peace-No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: DeweyCA

“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.”


29 posted on 12/18/2017 9:50:17 AM PST by Red Badger (Road Rage lasts 5 minutes. Road Rash lasts 5 months!.....................)
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To: Old Yeller

“Politicians are afraid cities will burn down if Hussein is touched”

I will volunteer twenty gallons of gas to help.


30 posted on 12/18/2017 9:50:29 AM PST by Mouton (The MSM is a clear and present danger to the republic.)
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To: DeweyCA

Hey, why didn’t I get any hits when I did a search for CNN + Project Cassandra?


31 posted on 12/18/2017 9:51:03 AM PST by doug from upland (Why the hell isn't Hillary Rodham Clinton in prison yet?)
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To: GOPJ

The DEA and FBI found Hezbollah operations in the US, and yet the Department of Justice refused to prosecute the cases...

Was that under holder the gun runner or Lynch the Clinton lackey.


32 posted on 12/18/2017 9:53:52 AM PST by Mouton (The MSM is a clear and present danger to the republic.)
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To: DeweyCA

And what about that huge pallet of money that was delivered to Iran at night by a private jet? MSMLSD where are you on that?


33 posted on 12/18/2017 10:00:31 AM PST by SkyDancer ( ~ Just Consider Me A Random Fact Generator ~)
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To: DeweyCA

This is treason and a crime. bammy needs to be in prison. The f*cking media obsesses over Trump’s words on Twitter, and completely and totally suppresses bammy’s crime.


34 posted on 12/18/2017 10:02:21 AM PST by I want the USA back (*slam is not a religion. It is a political movement to establish a religion.)
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To: DeweyCA

...and, Hillary would have continued Barry’s policies...

We dodged a Yuge bullet.


35 posted on 12/18/2017 10:04:09 AM PST by moovova
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To: DeweyCA
Laundering narcobucks via 300+ US used car dealerships...

... wasn't the Rat House IT guy DWS kept protecting operating some questionable car dealerships on the side? Someone needs to check if they were connected to this. Might make a nice next front for the Rats. See how well they defend perverts AND drug pushers. I suspect they won't do nearly as well as they've done deflecting attacks on the more political fronts for being a bunch of commie, Muslim traitors. Hit them where their PR defenses ain't!

36 posted on 12/18/2017 10:04:25 AM PST by JohnBovenmyer (Waiting for the tweets to hatch!)
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To: Old Yeller
Politicians are afraid cities will burn down if Hussein is touched.

They should fear what will happen if they don't more.......

Cities or the whole freaking continent. Your choice elites.....and the ferals won't be coming for your heads personally. We will....

37 posted on 12/18/2017 10:04:52 AM PST by Envisioning (Carry safe, always carry, everyday, everywhere.)
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To: DeweyCA

Are we getting closer to solving the Las Vegas shooting massacare


38 posted on 12/18/2017 10:06:33 AM PST by Steven Tyler
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To: DeweyCA

I did a google search on:
obama Hezbollah iran cocaine
Surprise: the following are reporting on it: Politico, NYpost, hotair, haaretz, Times of UK, daily mail UK, Fox News, Times of Israel.
Not a word from the mainstream media!!!!!!!! This is complete proof that the media are working actively to destroy this country. They did this deliberately and intentionally, with full knowledge and awareness. The media are protecting bammy who sold out this country to protect the regime that hates us and vows to destroy us!!!!!
Is anyone else rip$hit mad?
F*ck bammy and his *nus-l*cking media.


39 posted on 12/18/2017 10:15:54 AM PST by I want the USA back (*slam is not a religion. It is a political movement to establish a religion.)
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To: Mouton
Weren't the Clintons and their Arkansas ‘families’ accused of being involved in the ‘drug trade’ way back when?

Liberal elites aren't just rapists, pervs, and liars...

40 posted on 12/18/2017 10:21:00 AM PST by GOPJ (EVERY hellhole in the world is run by self appointed 'elites'...think about THAT FBI traitors.)
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