Trump Aides Behind ‘Dirty Ops’ Campaign Against Obama Officials Over Iran Deal, Report Says
Donald Trump’s obsession with former President Barack Obama and his administration’s policies just took another sinister turn that is simply Nixonian.
An investigation by the Observer revealed Saturday that Trump aides allegedly hired a private Israeli intelligence agency to conduct a “dirty ops” effort against Obama administration officials who promoted the Iran nuclear deal. The effort, it appears, wasn’t focused specifically on influencing global opinion regarding the merits of the deal, which is strongly supported by major U.S. allies, but rather to discredit it entirely by smearing the people who participated in it.
According to the report:
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 promised [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu that Iran would never have nuclear weapons and suggested that the Iranians thought they could “do what they want” since negotiating the nuclear deal in 2015. A source with details of the “dirty tricks campaign” said: “The idea was that people acting for Trump would discredit those who were pivotal in selling the deal, making it easier to pull out of it.”
Two main targets of this operation, according to the newspaper, were Obama national security adviser Ben Rhodes and deputy assistant to Obama Colin Kahl. Private operators allegedly attempted to “get dirt” on the two by delving into their private and political lives. This included instructions for investigators to contact prominent Iranian Americans and news media outlets including The New York Times, MSNBC, The Atlantic, Vox, and Haaretz, among others, according to the report.