Sessions' Order to Investigate Hezbollah-Related Investigations During Obama Administration

Jeff Sessions, the U.S. Attorney General, has ordered the formation of a commission to investigate a recent report in an American media outlet regarding the possible role of Barack Obama's administration in halting U.S. oversight of Hezbollah's criminal activities. On Saturday, December 23, French news agency AFP and American websites Politico, The New York Times, and Fox News reported the establishment of a commission by the U.S. Attorney General to ensure the proper enforcement of laws and necessary oversight of Hezbollah during the previous administration. According to these reports, Jeff Sessions expressed hope in a statement that the Obama administration did not obstruct the activities of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The U.S. Attorney General emphasized that the proper implementation of oversight plans on criminal activities and violent groups is also important for U.S. security. Senior members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote a letter to Mr. Sessions requesting an investigation into the report concerning the possible role of the previous U.S. administration in stopping oversight of Hezbollah's criminal activities and also asked him to provide documents related to the 'Cassandra Project' and several other operations related to U.S. oversight of Hezbollah activities within two weeks, by January 7. The DEA has been monitoring Hezbollah's activities in drug trafficking, arms, and money laundering since 2008 after obtaining evidence of Hezbollah's involvement in international criminal activities. However, Politico reported last week that senior American officials during Barack Obama's administration effectively 'dried up' the Cassandra Project through their recommendations and activities to increase hopes for a nuclear agreement between the U.S. and other global powers with Iran. The Politico report also claimed that senior officials from the U.S. Treasury and Justice Departments during Obama’s administration prevented investigations or arrests and sanctions against individuals suspected of criminal activities in Hezbollah's networks, hoping that Hezbollah would play a new role as an important regional ally of Iran in the Middle East. The report alleged that not only was oversight of Hezbollah's activities in Latin America halted, but some of Hezbollah's actions on U.S. soil were also taken off the radar to avoid angering Iran and to keep the nuclear negotiations on track. The Politico report claimed that the loosening of U.S. oversight over Hezbollah's activities allowed the organization to become one of the world's major cocaine traffickers and to provide conventional weapons and even chemical weapons to Bashar al-Assad's regime for use against the Syrian people. David Asher, a 49-year-old economic analyst at the U.S. Department of Defense and one of the architects of the Cassandra Project, was a source for last week's Politico report. Mr. Asher stated that he and his team in Beirut, while cooperating with Israel's intelligence, sought to be informed about the internal activities of a Lebanese bank that was exchanging Hezbollah's funds; this team was particularly monitoring the activities of Ayman Jumaa, a significant Lebanese drug trafficker linked to Hezbollah, who had extensive connections with drug cartels in Colombia in Latin America and Mexico, through which 'tens of tons of cocaine entered the U.S.'. According to the Politico report, Hezbollah had also established another route for transporting cocaine from Latin America to West African countries to be taken from there to Europe and the Middle East. Asher claimed that as the Obama administration got closer to a nuclear agreement with Iran, oversight of Hezbollah's criminal activities became more challenging, and after the nuclear agreement was reached, the operators of the Cassandra Project were assigned to other missions, effectively 'drying up' the project. The conclusion of the Politico report claimed that the actions during the Obama era actually allowed Hezbollah to become a global security threat. However, according to AFP, Edward Price, the spokesperson for the National Security Council during Obama’s administration, fundamentally rejected the Politico report, describing it as 'storytelling'. Mr. Price told the agency that the nuclear negotiations with Iran were solely about Iran's nuclear program and had no relation to U.S. oversight operations in other areas. Additionally, Kevin Lawrence, a former White House official and Justice Department employee during the Obama administration, emphasized that decisions regarding how to oversee Hezbollah's activities were made independently of politics. The U.S. considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization, and officials in the Trump administration have almost everywhere referred to Hezbollah as an ally of Iran when mentioning Iran's 'malicious and destabilizing actions' in the region. Recently, Mike Pence, the U.S. Vice President, emphasized that the 'commitment' of the U.S. under Donald Trump's presidency to stop Hezbollah has 'increased'. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives also unanimously passed three bills regarding Hezbollah in early November, one of which calls on the European Union to list this group as a terrorist organization. The other two bills impose sanctions on all individuals, entities, and companies that cooperate with Hezbollah in financing and recruiting, and the other bill sanctions this group along with Iran for 'using civilians as human shields'.