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Trump to release secret Iran-deal docs

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On 60 Minutes Sunday Night, Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu said he plans to come to the U.S. soon to meet with President-elect Donald Trump to lobby him with suggestions on how to scuttle the Iran nuclear deal. However, the scuttlebutt out of the beltway is that before he kills the deal, Trump (who has called the deal “stupid” and a “disgrace”) may use President Obama to “grease the skids.”

The Daily Beast reported last week that one of the first things the new president plans to do is to release the private files outlining hidden agreements made as part of the nuke deal and kept from the public. According to an individual who has participated in those conversations, senior foreign policy transition officials are already discussing what so-far-unseen unclassified information about the Iran agreement they will be able to make public after January.

Bloomberg View reported last month that the Trump team was looking at declassifying and releasing potentially “embarrassing” Iran nuke deal-related documents that the Obama administration had classified, including documents linking Iran to Sunni terror groups and outlining cash transfers to Iran which the administration continues to claim were not ransom.

That earlier report described the potentially embarrassing documents that the administration classified to save face, including an intelligence assessment written to excuse capitulation by U.S. negotiators on requiring Iran to disclosing past nuclear work, and a document imagining a world in which Iran will fully cooperate with the deal for the next 20 years.

But there are dozens of other Iran nuke-deal-related documents which are not even classified secret, but which the Obama administration has nonetheless refused to release. There are broad suspicions that those documents contain embarrassing concessions to Iran: both additional U.S. obligations and exemptions for Iranian obligations. As a technical matter, it would be straightforward to release those documents. As a political matter, the Obama administration has consistently had trouble explaining why the public shouldn’t see them.

Releasing these documents would be celebrated by lawmakers who have opposed the agreement, especially those who opposed it feeling that Congress was compelled to vote without all of the information it was promised. Some of Trump’s cabinet members have been complaining over the lack of transparency about the deal — Gen. Michael Flynn, who will be national security adviser, and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS), Trump’s choice for CIA director.

According to the Weekly Standard, much of the support for releasing the documents is coming from President Obama’s own party:

•Sen. John Tester (D-MT): “Unless there’s a damn good reason to keep them out of the public eye, turn them over. … I’m more on the side of transparency than not, that is for sure. ... But that’s a first blush, not really knowing what’s in them.”

•Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE): “If they’re unclassified, what are they doing in a SCIF [sensitive compartmented information facility]? The entire purpose of a SCIF is to be a place where you can read classified documents.”

•Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ): “They are unclassified. There should be transparency, and that transparency ultimately helps inform the public. … I think it’s a good idea.”

•Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD): “There are sorts of information you want to protect, and then there are strategic issues that you have to deal with because there might be continued negotiations … If it doesn’t fall in those two categories, I don’t think it should be a concern.”

If the Trump administration does release these documents, it would have an element of karma. Early in his tenure, President Obama declassified and released the justification for approving the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program during President George W. Bush’s tenure.

 Here’s the bottom line: Although these documents are unclassified, they’ve been kept secret because had they been released, President Obama would have been embarrassed and the deal might have been scuttled. If they are released, we will know all the capitulations made by President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry made to appease Iran, including the ransom President Obama claims isn’t ransom.

Should he go ahead and release these documents, Trump’s desire to kill the deal will become even more popular, making it easier to remove the U.S. obligations to a deal that Iran has yet to approve.

Jeff Dunetz is a columnist for The Jewish Star.