US Senator Tom Cotton has warned that alleged Iranian spies that could be operating within the US intelligence community.
The New York Post reported that the senator sent a “dire letter” to FBI Director Kash Patel and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, urging an investigation into the matter.
He called on them to the review the issue “thoroughly for counterintelligence concerns and potential criminality”, sounding the alarm that “national security information” may have been provided to a “hostile foreign power” or that American citizens acting on behalf of an enemy government may have worked to influence US policy.
The letter specifically singled out Ariane Tabatabai, a founding member of the Iranian Experts Initiatives (IEI) who served a senior role in the State Department under President Joe Biden, and who still works in the Pentagon as a senior policy advisor, reported the New York Post.
Tabatabai, 40, an Iranian-born US intelligence official, was alleged in a 2023 trove of leaked documents to be a willing recruit in an influence operation run by Tehran’s Foreign Ministry, continued the report.
She was also a top aide to Robert Malley, Biden’s special envoy to Iran who was suspended in June 2023 for mishandling “protected material.” Critics charge that Malley was at the center of a massive State Department scandal, alleging he encouraged a “permissive” stance toward Iran — one that allowed the nation to aid Hamas and Hezbollah in attacks against Israel.
For years, Republicans have labeled Tabatabai a spy, a claim that intelligence officials under Biden repeatedly denied.
Last October, when US documents detailing a planned strike against Iran were leaked — delivering a major blow to Israel’s war effort — Israeli intelligence pointed squarely at Tabatabai as a likely culprit, said the Post.
“She has been suspected of collaborating with the regime before,” a US-based Iran expert told the Post in 2024. “There were some calls for her to be stripped of her security clearance.”
The Pentagon has previously maintained that Tabatabai was not suspected in the leak.
Speaking with The Post after the letter was delivered, Cotton reiterated the urgency of repairing the “leaky ship” that Biden left behind.
“Iran’s mission is ‘death to America,’ so it’s particularly concerning that Joe Biden allowed someone so deeply connected to Iranian leadership access to our national security,” the Republican from Arkansas said of Tabatabai. “The FBI and DoD should continue correcting the many security lapses of the Biden administration.”
