Today on the Senate floor, Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan called for the resignation of President Joe Biden’s Special Climate Envoy John Kerry.
Allegations have been made in an interview leaked to the media that Kerry, while Donald Trump was president, disclosed more than 200 secret operations conducted by Israel against Iran, one of the most dangerous sponsors of terrorism.
“If true, this revelation is shocking, and a betrayal of one of our most crucial allies in the world,” Sullivan said, having just flown back to D.C. from Alaska. What the foreign minister alleges is that Kerry leaked classified information.
“It’s unclear why John Kerry would relay such information to the leaders of the largest sponsored terrorism in the world,” he said. “The secret information was given to one of America’s most sworn enemies….undermining the interests of one of our most important allies, the state of Israel. If this is true, John Kerry needs to go,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan’s remarks were based on a David Harsanyi story in the National Review, titled, John Kerry, enemy of Israel.
From the story:
“We know now that former secretary of state John Kerry isn’t merely a critic of Israel; he is an adversary. In leaked audiotapes obtained by the U.K.-based Iran International, as reported by the New York Times, Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told a supporter that the former secretary of state had informed him about “at least” 200 covert Israeli actions against Iranian interests in Syria. Zarif listened to this information in “astonishment.”
“It’s predictable, perhaps, that the Times glides over this remarkable exchange in a single-sentence paragraph that is submerged near the bottom of the piece,” Harsanyi wrote in a story that is behind the news organization’s paywall.
According to the New York Post, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said in the leaked recording obtained by the New York Times and Iran International that the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the country’s supreme leader kept him in the dark about government negotiations and military operations. Instead, he was being briefed by Kerry about Israel’s operations.
“It was former US Foreign Secretary John Kerry who told me Israel had launched more than 200 attacks on Iranian forces in Syria,” Zarif said in the audio recording, which was not supposed to be published until August, after Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani leaves office.
The complete transcript of Sullivan’s remarks on Monday, April 26:
Mr. Sullivan: Madam President, I rise today on the Senate floor to call for the resignation of John Kerry as a member of the Biden Administration’s National Security Council. Now, Madam President, I don’t do this lightly. As a matter of fact, in my entire time in the Senate, I’ve never called for anyone’s resignation – Obama-Biden administration, Trump administration, Biden administration now. Trust me, I’ve been tempted, particularly when some in government have tried to hurt my state. A lot of that is going on right now with the Biden administration. But his record, John Kerry’s record, of undermining working families and working against American national security interests is too much to bear. He needs to go.
Today, I’ve heard such disturbing news, Madam President, that, if true, it should absolutely result in John Kerry either being fired or resigning. Enough is enough. Why am I saying this? Madam President, first, he’s killing jobs. Arrogantly killing American jobs. That’s a fact. He’s putting hard-working Americans, particularly in the energy sector, the great men and women who make our country strong, by developing oil and gas resources, a lot of my constituents, in the name of climate goals, he’s putting them out of work.
He’s going to Wall Street saying don’t finance these projects anymore. That’s what reporters are saying. On these issues, I completely and adamantly disagree with the arrogant way, frankly, the callous way he talks about people needing to move on to better jobs. But, for this issue alone, I wouldn’t be calling for his resignation. T
his is a major difference in the Biden administration’s policies and priorities with regard to the American people. I think it’s going to really come back and hit this administration hard because the vast majority of Americans don’t agree with putting people out of work, energy workers out of work, during a recession and a pandemic. But that’s going to be decided in the voting booth, in the elections. The American people will ultimately decide on whether arrogantly putting thousands and thousands of energy workers out of work right now is a good idea in the name of these climate goals.
He’s also been a strong appeaser of countries that threaten ours. Let me take you back to 2015. I was a brand-new U.S. Senator. President Obama, President Xi Jinping are meeting in the Rose Garden. President Xi, of China, tells the President of the United States and the American people, “No, we’re not going to militarize the South China Sea. We won’t do it.” Of course, the Chinese Communist Party was not telling the truth to the President of the United States and the American people. They started to do this already, militarizing one of the most important sea routes in the world.
Many of us here in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, said we need to stand up for our interests. We need the U.S. Navy to do freedom of navigation operations. The Secretary of Defense wanted to do this. The admiral in charge of the INDOPACOM area of responsibility wanted to do this. But we now know, in principals meetings, we delayed doing this for almost three years because John Kerry said we don’t want to get the Chinese mad or they’ll go back on their Paris climate deal and commitments, which, by the way, are way out in the future. This is true. This is true. This happened. And, again, in my view, this bordered on treacherous if not treasonous.
I didn’t call for his resignation then. I certainly was mad about it. By the way, a lot of people in the Obama administration were mad about this, including the secretary of defense. We lost a lot of time. It certainly makes me nervous that John Kerry is out in Beijing again. What kind of deal did he cut this time with China, the Communist Party of China who won’t keep any commitments? But, again, that wasn’t a call for resignation.
Madam President, the straw that broke the camel’s back came out today, and it’s the reason I’m up here calling for John Kerry to resign. It is a tape that was leaked of an interview with Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Zarif. First, some background. Zarif was being interviewed by an economist and journalist who is an advisor to Mohammad Khatami, the pro-reform cleric who served two terms as Iran’s president. An edited version of this interview was intended to be made public only after Iran’s president left office in August, but it was leaked.
Zarif, according to reports, says many interesting and telling things in the tape. One, for example, that, in my view, the rightful killing of General Soleimani, the Quds Force commander, in January of 2020, when he was in Iraq looking to kill more American soldiers, Zarif said this “was a major blow to Iran, more damaging than if it had wiped out an entire city in an attack.” That’s what a lot of us were arguing at the time and that, unlike what John Kerry has been telling the public, when negotiating the Iran nuclear deal in the Obama administration, it is the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Quds Force, not Zarif, who calls the shots in Iran. That’s all on the tapes.
But, Madam President, the most disturbing part of the interview that was leaked was when Zarif said that John Kerry told him, the Iranian foreign minister, about covert Israeli actions against Iranian interests in Syria. Now, think about that. According to news reports, Zarif is heard saying, “It was former U.S. Foreign Secretary John Kerry who told me Israel had launched more than 200 attacks on Iranian forces in Syria.” That’s Zarif saying John Kerry told him that. Classified information about one of our most important allies in the world – Israel. Zarif said, “He listened to this information from Secretary Kerry in astonishment.”
Now, Madam President, when I read this today, I was astonished as well that a former secretary of state, now a member of President Biden’s National Security Council – wasn’t confirmed for that, by the way, by this body – would reveal the secrets of one of our most important and enduring allies in the region to an avowed enemy, the largest state sponsor of terrorism, a country that was responsible for the killing and wounding and maiming of thousands of American service men and women, whose leaders have the blood of American soldiers on its hands. He’s telling them that information.
Madam President, it’s unclear why John Kerry would relay such information to the leaders of the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, but here’s a guess. During the Trump administration, after that administration pulled out of the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, which John Kerry negotiated and, by the way, the bipartisan majority of U.S. senators in this body were against, were against that deal, John Kerry started to freelance. He admitted to meeting with Zarif in 2018 to try to salvage the nuclear deal. In other words, he was likely acting and working against the previous administration, the elected administration of the Trump administration, and many of us here in Congress who applauded when we pulled out of the JCPOA. Madam President, I’d like to submit for the record an article written today by the National Review titled, “John Kerry, Enemy of Israel.”
The beginning of this article says, “Let’s pause to reflect on how monumentally stunning it is that the former U.S. secretary of state allegedly tattled on Israel to Iran.” It goes on to say “a high-ranking American official would feel comfortable sharing this kind of classified information with an autocratic adversary, a government that’s murdered hundreds of Americans, regularly kidnapped them, interfered with our elections, and propped up a regime that gases its people, about the covert actions of a longtime critical American ally.”
“What else did Kerry tell Zarif?” this article asks. Press reports don’t say, but, Madam President, if this is true, if John Kerry told the leaders of Iran about issues relating to our most critical ally in the region, Israel, who Iran has repeatedly said they want to wipe off the face of the Earth, if he did this, he needs to resign. If he did this with the intent of undermining the current President of the United States, at the time President Trump, and the members of this body, he needs to resign.
Madam President, he is a member of the current administration’s National Security Council. It’s become clear, Madam President, that our adversaries, whether Beijing or Iran, like it when John Kerry is in charge of foreign policy and national security. Why? Because they know how to use him to their advantage. And our allies fear him. Why? Because they know his judgment is off on so many issues. So, too, do America’s working families.
We need to look into this. If this is true – if this is true, I certainly hope other members of this body, Democrats and Republicans, will join me in calling for the resignation of John Kerry. Enough is enough. The red line that was crossed, if this is true, revealing secret information to one of America’s most sworn enemies, with the blood of thousands of American military members on its hands, undermining the interests of one of our most important allies, the state of Israel, if this is true, John Kerry needs to go. He should resign or he should get fired by the President of the United States.
We know politicians betray our great country and it’s allies every day. If proven the courts need to step up and put this to an end by executing Kerry for Treason. Fake prison time should not be an option.
Yes he should be charged with treason
Not sure if Senator Sullivan actually read the article in the National Review, or the NYT article upon which it was based, but his accusation against Kerry’s alleged infraction is pretty lame. Here’s the quote from the NYT.
“Former Secretary of State John Kerry informed him that Israel had attacked Iranian interests in Syria at least 200 times, to his astonishment, Mr. Zarif said.” Kerry, in fact, notified Zarif about something the Iranian hierarchy, a group that Mr. Zarif was sometimes left out of when they were having discussion, apparently were aware of anyway, and I’ll betcha a tall cool one the Israelis knew, too. It isn’t clear from the NYT article nor from two NR editorials if the information Kerry gave Zarif was, in fact, classified.
This is Senator Sullivan looking for anything he can find to criticize the players in Biden’s administration, and it comes off as a pretty pathetic attempt to accuse a government official of some sort of intelligence disaster threatening US/Israeli relations. I wonder why he didn’t have anything to say when Trump met secretly with Russian ministers, and without any US officials, early on in his Presidency so he could talk about how sophisticated and powerful and capable our US military was. Now THAT sounds like a security breach. We Alaskans and Americans deserve better than this.
You let the constitution lapse on your watch.
He’ll get away with it, always does. This will barely rise above local politics on the scales of buzz news. He’s a czar your a peasant, don’t you forget it.
If true, maybe the Mossad should handle this one.
Well known for his betrayal of the US during the VietNam war. See “Upriver” a documentary on his attempt to discredit US forces in VietNam. Also falsely claimed awards for his short ( 6 months) Viet Nam service.
Remember when 45 told us John Kerry had violated the Logan Act, and the rest of the traitors double-talked his way out of it? I would wager that a bunch of OUR secrets have been blabbed to our enemies (past and present) as well. John Kerry’s name just keeps coming up (Viet Nam. Cuba. Iran.) when it comes to loose lips and sinking ships. I support Senator Sullivan on this. Perhaps this will be the first domino to fell the traitors into the spotlight. Time to make some ropes and find a good sturdy tree.
He should be in Leavenworth, for the rest of his life. I would be, were I to reveal anything secret or classified. He was a private citizen when he did this, so he is a traitor and should be imprisoned and probably done away with. Period.
In ancient Rome, when they were dissatisfied with an official, they would send them a sword with the suggestion”hat the official should fall upon it. Some customs fell out of fashion all too soon
John Kerry is a POS from way back to Vietnam. He lied and denigrated our troops before Congress. He sold us out with his Iran deal and then started to betray us when Trump undid the deal. He needs to be arrested and tried for his involvement with our enemy. Make no mistake about it. Iran is our enemy and has been since 1979, when they attacked our embassy in Tehran and held our citizens for over a year. Kerry needs to be held accountable!
I hope Mossad pays kerry a visit.
John Kerry has been an enemy of this country for a long time, just like most leftists.
Surprise surprise! John F’ing Kerry, the swift boat veteran, who collected a plateful of Purple Hearts (and has no discernable injuries), testified against fellow Vietnam soldiers DURING combat operations, carpet-bagged his way into the US Senate, married a billionaire heiress, …….. and now we learn that he has leaked classified information to our avowed enemy (Iran)? THAT John Kerry? His crimes against America rival those of Hillary Clinton. Yet, nothing. Don’t expect anything here, Dan, not while the anti-American commie Democrats are in charge of all three branches of our government. But, good try.
No! the embedded treason is putting the interests of Israel before America. Israel is not the 51st state of America and we are not beholden to them.
I guess most of you missed the part of Sullivan’s speech where he repeated a number of times “if this is true” . You would think that you would want to know if what you are accusing someone of was true before you demand they be fired.
But Sullivan knows he can fire up his base in Alaska regardless if it is true or not. He is wanting to appear to be tough or in most case trying to make himself relevant to the trump crowd.
I have seem many conservative claim that you are innocent until proven guilty but that does not matter to Sullivan if he figures he can get some brownie points with the nut jobs.
He should be tried for treason, but democrats always get away with stuff like this and nothing happens to them.
Danny(!!!) … Any hope of working with any democrat is a complete waste of time and effort. They have proven this fact time-and-time again; they are proven liars; they’ve proven themselves lacking any measure of (a) logic, (b) reason, (c) common sense, (d) honor, and.or (e) integrity. They are indeed a disappointing breed not worthy of working and compromising with. The sooner you can accept this fact, the sooner you can completely crush, destroy, and eliminate this clear and present danger!
Good luck getting Kerry fired Senator, his kin and Biden’s kin are thoroughly entangled in the foreign business dealings. Wondering how Kerry got that job in the first place, he’s the purest form of hypocrisy in that appointment.
Resign? Try Gitmo
Kerry is slime.
So why don’t we subpoena Iran’s foreign minister, establish his credibility to testify against a member of a government hostile to Iran and…….oh.
you mean like what trump did with Ukraine and Putin?
Why does the US always back Israel so strongly? They have forced Palestinians off of their land, occupied it, and treat them inhumanely like second-class citizens. Is this a good demonstration of American values? Hardly.
Iran is much better.
Y’all do realize it is to Iran’s benefit to make Israel mistrustful of the US, right? The evidence is allegedly Iran’s foreign minister.
That manic laughter you’re hearing is coming from The (once) White House.
There will be no resignation.
There may well be a “hero” reception for the traitor in the Rose Garden.
With leadership like we have America is over.
Get used to it.
Alleged and allegations, is it true or not? Facts matter not emotions about how you feel about something that “allegedly” happened. If it is indeed fact, say so.
Dog, maybe it’s something as simple as the Jews are the chosen people and when JC and the boys come back if they’ve been nuked somebody’s going to be pretty pissed off don’t you think?
Whidbey is an anti semite. What a surprise. You pretty much hate everybody don’t you?
Where is George Orwell when we need him?
AkFireFlower,
Objecting to America’s favorable policy towards Israel does not make a person Anti-Semite.
Dear Fireflower, I’m of course not an anti-Semite, but I am an anti-Anyone Who Does Not Respect Human Rights. I think that might also be a pretty Christian viewpoint, if I understand the Bible’s teachings correctly.
Dear GF, ‘Chosen People” is as much a fantasy as “Christianity is the only one true religion”.
Whidbey: There’s not very many religions in the world that demand integrity, honesty, empathy, accountability, generosity, purity, and etc. and offer wisdom, discernment, peace, comfort, understanding, character, eternal life, and etc.
So which of the demands is it that you don’t want to comply with, and which of the offers is it that you don’t want to have?
I’m just happy Senator Sullivan is finally finding his voice and appears to have grown a set. He might even get my support in future elections if he keeps up this trend. Kudos to him.
JosephDJ, thankfully, I can practice the full list, except for eternal life, without the need for any religion at all. Secular humanism works just as well, and it eliminates the need for belief in the unobservable and unprovable.
And sorry to disappoint, but the promise of eternal life is nothing more than a fantasy cooked up in the past as a way assuage one’s fear of death, and to bind people to the Church.
TB and Whidbey, the Nazis also believed their own lies to justify their genocidal hatred. So it seems you are both in the appropriate party. And like the Nazis you are both on the wrong side of history
A spirit without a body is a ghost. A body without a spirit is a corpse. No one has yet proven how the two combine to form life, yet we perceive it every day with all of our senses. Interesting that denial of God comes up in the comments of a story surrounding a betrayal. Thankfully, eternal life was bought and paid for long ago.
John Kerry, Enemy of America.
Whidbey: The difficulty in my eyes is that you’re absolutely correct. One doesn’t need religion to be a productive citizen, and the promise of eternal life is used to control the members of the church.
What isn’t ever explained about mainstream religion, is that it has traded the true creator for a smaller, easier to control god of their own selves. When they’re singing “Oh, how I love Jesus…” they’re really singing “Oh, how I love me…”
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If there is no Creator, then the universe, and everything in it is just a cosmic accident, where no one has any lasting value, except as compost.
If there is a Creator, then everything is on purpose, has a purpose, and everyone has value. I deliberately chose to believe in a Creator, as He has described Himself. I hate accidents, and I want everything, good or bad, to be on purpose.
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My beliefs are deliberately chosen, for supportable reasons. I haven’t been stampeded by fear, nor lured in just to be “friended”.
JosephDJ, some interesting points indeed. I agree that many of the purportedly religious are more concerned with themselves than with their God. Churchgoing becomes a beauty pageant where members show off their piety, fillup on pride, reinforce their feelings of superiority over the heathens outside of their Chosen cohort, and exhibit smugness at being eternally saved. How many of them really, truly, deeply believe in the Creeds they recite? Most, I submit, don’t really, would never die for their God, and are mainly keeping up religious appearances. Or, at least most have deeply-seated Doubt.
How can it be that such a select few can be the only ones saved? What about the other billions who have been unlucky enough to be born into false religions, and who will be eternally damned through no fault of their own? Hitchens has long illustrated a similar point by asking how it can make any sense that the worst criminal in the world can accept God with his last breath, and thereby be eternally saved, yet another who lives a life in accordance with Christian ideals (like your list above) but lacks Christian faith is relegated to perdition? None of this makes any sense, and to a thinking person, it provides a strong motivation to reject organized religions – especially those that demand obedience to a Deity and reward or punish according to its judgement.
On the subject of creation, I agree with you that people are entitled to their opinions, many of which are equally valid. Why? Because the origin of the cosmos is fundamentally unknowable. As the protozoa can never comprehend the larger body in which it exists, humans are not and will never be capable of understanding the origin of the universe in which they exist. The best physicists in the world can describe the beginnings, except for the actual initiation. Take your choice: We may all be a computer simulation. Our universe may be only one of many. Reality may be nothing at all like we think it is (and physics is proving it to be stranger and stranger every day), God created the world in seven days. In the end, we will never know. But there is something that started it all, so believe what you will. But I don’t go with the omnipresent and omnipotent Creator.
How little we really know.
Whidbey: You asked “How can it be that such a select few can be the only ones saved?”
There are many clues in the Bible that suggest that there will be opportunity for everyone to get a fair opportunity for salvation. It doesn’t fit the church agenda though, because it doesn’t polarize the narrative.
All of the dead will be brought back to life (consciousness) and individually judged. “To whom little is given, little shall be required. To whom much has been given, much will be required.”
Then there is the parable of the laborers who worked all day for their pay, and were complaining about the late hires who received the same pay, for only working part of the day.
Living people, wherever the Gospel is preached, must choose to believe, or be lost. However, babies aborted, having no opportunity to even be made aware of salvation, shall be judged generously, according to their total lack of opportunity.
People born into other religions shall be given opportunity on judgement day also. “For as you have done to the least of those who are mine, the same shall be done to you.” “A contrite heart shall not be despised.”
Yahshua-Yahweh Elohim is a lot nicer than the Church leadership would have us believe. “Where are your accusers?” “They have all left my Lord.” “Neither do I accuse you. Go and sin no more.”
Whidbey is laughably ignorant. The UN granted the Zionist Jews (correct use of the term), in 1948, land that was twice the size of modern Israel, yet Israel gave the Arabs an equal share of that land–the Jordanians have a country due to this. The “Palestinians” (a Roman legal description referring to all people who lived in Roman occupied Israel) at the time were a scattered group of settlers/nomads, with no group identity, who had made no claim on 99.9% of the land given to the Jews. The Arab settlers attacked early Israeli towns, first, b/c they wanted resources (the Koran also compels its adherents to murder Jewish people). Fighting has continued ever since, b/c the Palestinians refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist in any form. Moreover, many of the modern “Palestinians” are refugees from the 6 day War, w/ no legitimate claim to any of the land in that region.
Did you know that the British government attempted to negotiate an early peace deal between the Zionists, and local Arab settlers, talks that the British effectively ceased, b/c the Arabs weren’t willing to compromise on anything other than the denial of any Jewish state. The Zionists originally offered a joint state with numerically equal representation of Jews and Arabs in the Knesset; however, the Arabs refused to recognize Jews as their equals.
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