While a lot of the media world is understandably looking at the evolving news around the Hunter Biden plea deal, there’s another Biden administration scandal that is pretty huge but isn’t getting the same amount of attention: What the heck is going on with Rob Malley?

The State Department faced a grilling on Wednesday behind closed doors in a classified briefing about Rob Malley.

Rob Malley was one of the architects behind the 2015 Iran nuclear deal during the Obama/Biden administration. Joe Biden made him the Special Envoy to Iran in 2021, and he revived talk on the deal that former President Donald Trump had pulled out of in 2018.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee had been trying to get testimony from him for months. Still, the State Department kept putting them off for a variety of reasons, even though he was making press appearances.

Then it turned out that Malley had been stripped of his security clearance and placed on full unpaid leave pending a State Department security investigation for possible mishandling of classified documents. That investigation involved the FBI and the Diplomatic Security Service (the law enforcement branch of the State Department). He had been placed on partial leave in the spring.

That’s incredibly concerning, given his position and what he might have done. The fact that virtually no one in the Biden team suffers consequences suggests that what he did was problematic if even the Biden administration took some action. But then, typically, they’re not being straight with Congress and not telling people what happened here.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-TX) said earlier this month:

“At no point did the Department indicate that Special Envoy Malley’s security clearance was suspended or under review, or that he was being investigated for potential misconduct,” wrote the congressman.

He added, “The Department’s failure to inform Congress of this matter demonstrates at best a lack of candor, and at worst represents deliberate and potentially unlawful misinformation.”

McCaul threatened to hold the State Department in contempt if they didn’t get a classified briefing. He also used the word “treason” because the way the Biden team is acting makes it look awful. McCaul has previously said that they didn’t know what was going on but that if he had leaked classified information to our adversaries, like Iran or Russia, that could constitute an “act of treason.”

SOUND ON – #REPOST @morganortagus :
“I asked Chairman of @houseforeigngop, @congressman_mccaul, about the ongoing investigation into Iran Envoy Rob Malley. McCaul told me he is deeply concerned about the possibility of an act of treason.”
.#kayhanlife #robmalley #iranenvoy… pic.twitter.com/n31dXNKso7

— Kayhan Life (@KayhanLife) July 22, 2023

Now, I’m not saying that he has committed that, but we need to know what is going on. We need to be briefed in the Congress. This is the very same man who negotiated the Iran deal, This is a man that the nation has put their most – their biggest confidence in, with some of the biggest secrets related to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and if there’s anything that has compromised that, Congress needs to know.

The grilling on Wednesday came after an agreement with McCaul to brief Congress on the matter.

Iranian press is reporting that Malley was holding secret talks with the Iranians at the United Nations, perhaps without authorization. That would be a huge problem, to say the least.

Malley, in fact, has a history of holding unsanctioned meetings with America’s enemies, including in 2008, when he was fired from the Obama campaign for conducting talks with the Iranian-backed terror group Hamas. In addition to mishandling classified information, officials can have their security clearances revoked if they fail to disclose contacts with foreigners.

The Tehran Times, a pro-regime mouthpiece, claimed earlier this month that Malley engaged in “suspicious interactions with unofficial advisors of Iranian descent,” and that his security clearance was initially pulled in late April. The disclosure of these details in the Iranian press indicates that sources in Tehran may know more about the situation than those in the American media.

Leaking Classified Information to Pro-Tehran Advocates

Sources who spoke to the Free Beacon indicated that Malley may have leaked classified information to a network of pro-Tehran advocates who supported the Obama administration’s Iran deal. Malley and others involved in the original Iran deal routinely briefed this group to ensure they reiterated the Obama administration’s talking points about the deal. The collection of Iran deal supporters and those sympathetic to the hardline regime came to be known as the “echo chamber.”

Sources say Malley may have resumed briefing the echo chamber as President Joe Biden pushes to resurrect the Iran deal, and that during one such briefing he may have leaked information he was not authorized to disclose.

I’ve reported before that during Trump’s term, Malley (and other Obama/Biden people) met with the Iranians, trying to preserve the Iran deal, going around what the Trump administration was doing at the time. Talk about a possible Logan Act problem. Yet neither he nor any of the Obama/Biden team that were involved with meeting with the Iranians were held to account for those meetings. It’s also more than a little concerning that Obama and Biden would hire him for such a pivotal position after his contact with Hamas.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) demanded answers, “The State Department needs to explain why Robert Malley continued working on negotiations with Iran to resurrect the failed nuclear deal after losing his security clearance.”

The State Department needs to explain why Robert Malley continued working on negotiations with Iran to resurrect the failed nuclear deal after losing his security clearance. https://t.co/BL2NAJjTPr

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) July 25, 2023

We’ll keep you updated if more comes out of the hearing, but obviously, there’s a big problem here, and once again, the Biden team has played cover-up rather than revealing what’s been going on. That likely means there’s a lot there to be concerned about.