The only congressman who speaks Farsi is now out of the slammer. That's a good reason to put anyone in the slammer, don't you think?
Former Ohio congressman Bob Ney, a Republican, says his corruption investigation in the Jack Abramoff scandal only kicked into gear after he sought to intervene with the Bush administration on behalf of Iran in 2003. Iran went to Ney cause he speaks Farsi. Here's Ney, interviewed by Thom Hartmann:
issue. It's been no secret that when I went to prison I gave permission
for a secret meeting I'd had with Mr. Guldimann [Tim Guldimann, then
Swiss Ambassador in Tehran] who came from Switzerland. He presented a
document that was absolutely incredible, where Iran would have
recognized Israel and a whole host of other things, would have let our
inspectors on their ground; and I sent that to the White House…. I believe that every step of the way, and I think it came more from
Cheney's people, but every step of the way that I attempted to deal
with Iran, it got pretty harsh back. And so I think part of this, I
made the bullets, I gave them the bullets, but I think some of the
force was also involved with, you know, Iran and people that would
rather see those countries not communicate, no matter who is head of
Iran.
[Thom]: So Iran came to you because you speak Farsi and you are the Iran expert in the House of Representatives.
[Ney]: Ambassador Guldimann, who was ambassador from Switzerland to Iran, he came to me.
[Thom]: Right. Their representative. In other words, they approached you through their legal representative.
[Ney]: And I had participated in the meeting in Stockholm.
[Thom]: And they said that they would recognize Israel and that they
would allow UN inspectors into their nuclear sites, and you passed that
information along to the White House, it fell down the rabbit hole and
immediately you were being prosecuted.
[Ney]: It fell down the rabbit hole, there was a lot of kickback. I
know that Guldimann had terrible problems after that, I think with,
mainly through Rumsfeld's people and Cheney's people. That's what
happened after that agreement.
Ney is backed up on the sequence by the great Trita Parsi, who brings in the names Rove and Elliott Abrams.
