{"id":26337,"date":"2015-08-23T20:10:56","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T00:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=26337"},"modified":"2015-08-23T20:10:56","modified_gmt":"2015-08-24T00:10:56","slug":"following-the-money-on-the-iran-treaty-public-relations-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=26337","title":{"rendered":"Following The Money On The Iran Treaty Public Relations Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kyle Shideler posted an article at the Center for Security Policy<\/a> on Wednesday about some of the campaigns supporting the nuclear deal with Iran<\/a>. Recently the Iran deal was endorsed by\u00a0three-dozen retired flag and general officers. This sounds a little odd, but makes perfect sense when you consider who composed the letter and asked for the signatures.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

Adm. Barnett\u2019s support for the deal is not necessarily surprising. Barnett has repeatedly taken public positions on military or national security related issues that align closely with those of the Obama White House<\/a>, including opposition to \u201cenhanced interrogation<\/a> techniques,\u201d in favor of changes to DOD\u2019s Transgender policy<\/a>, and applauding the use of national security as a reason to support school lunch changes<\/a> proposed by First Lady Michelle Obama<\/a>. In his capacity as a Venable employee, Barnett also worked a high profile case<\/a> on sexual abuse in the military during a period at a moment when the White House was seized with the topic.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Barnett solicited signatures for the letter from his Venable work email, but denies that his employer played any role in the letter.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Given that Barnett had denied what appears to be obvious White House involvement, his other denial seems worthy of further investigation as well. Is there reason to believe that the firm has an interest in ending Iran sanctions<\/a>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oddly enough, there seems to be a financial connection. The article goes on to list some of the companies that Venable is associated with–the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans<\/a> (PAAIA), an Iranian-American<\/a> group, with its own political PAC is one of Venable’s non-profit clients, According to the article,\u00a0One of PAAIA\u2019s \u201cFounding Donors\u201d<\/a> was Venable Partner Robert S. Babayi.<\/p>\n

The article further reports:<\/p>\n

Babayi is also the co-founder<\/a> of the Iranian American Bar Association<\/a> (IABA). Venable held presentations for the IABA on Iranian Americans living in or doing business<\/a> in Iran and Iran sanctions laws. In March of 2010, IABA screened the anti-Guantanamo Bay detention facility movie<\/a> \u201cThe Response\u201d which was executive produced by Venable LLP<\/a>. Venable representedEgyptian detainees<\/a> at Guantanamo (the subject of the film), and Babayi\u2019s email is listed as the RSVP email.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Babayi apparently left Venable to become Managing Director of Vector IP<\/a>, a boutique Patent law firm in June 2014. Babayi is also a U.S. Advisory Team member for IBridges,<\/a> an organization that works to promote High Tech entrepreneurship in Iran.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Venable may also have other interests in Iran:<\/strong><\/p>\n

A 2013 article by Asharq Al-Awsat<\/a> identifies one Majid Javedani-Tabrizi as a lawyer representing Venable LLP who announced Iran was preparing to reinstate direct flights to the United States<\/a>. While Iran denied this, it subsequently signaled that a new nuclear deal may open the door for direct flights<\/a>. Venable reportedly did not reply<\/a> when questioned about its role in the announcement.<\/strong><\/p>\n

…Either way, their letter underscores the fact that powerful financial interests at work in securing approval of the Iran deal, interests that would appear likely to profit from seeing Iran sanctions end.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Inquiring minds want to know: Were such interests at Venable and among its clients disclosed to the senior military officers before they signed on?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As with most things in the Obama Administration, following the money tells a whole lot more than what is actually being said.<\/p>\n

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Kyle Shideler posted an article at the Center for Security Policy on Wednesday about some of the campaigns supporting the nuclear deal with Iran. Recently the Iran deal was endorsed by\u00a0three-dozen retired flag and general officers. This sounds a little … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[246,9353,9219,5012,9354,1441,8367],"class_list":["post-26337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-iran","tag-iranian-american","tag-iranian-nuclear-treaty","tag-national-iranian-american-council","tag-public-affairs-alliance-of-iranian-americans","tag-tehran","tag-the-washington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26338,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26337\/revisions\/26338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}