Kerry’s reported leaks to Iran about Israel lead to calls for his dismissal

“John Kerry needs to go. He should resign, or he should get fired by the president of the United States,” said Sen. Dan Sullivan.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) on Monday called for the resignation of Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, a member of President Biden’s National Security Council, due to reports that Kerry revealed sensitive information about Israel’s covert activities in Syria to Iranian officials.

Sullivan, speaking on the Senate floor, said, “Today I’ve heard such disturbing news that if true, it should absolutely result in the call of John Kerry either being fired or resigning. Enough is enough.”

According to Sullivan, the disturbing news came by way of “a tape that was leaked of an interview with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif.”

“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,” Sullivan said.

Zarif said that, “to his astonishment,” then Secretary of State Kerry informed him that Israel had attacked Iranian interests in Syria at least 200 times, the New York Times reported Sunday.

“When I read this today, I was astonished as well,” said Sullivan.

“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,” he said.

Sullivan said that Kerry has a record of working against American national security interests, but the latest news represents “a redline that was crossed” and “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“John Kerry needs to go. He should resign, or he should get fired by the president of the United States,” he said.

According to the New York Times, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh did not dispute the authenticity of the recording but called the leak “unethical politics.”

Kerry denied the allegations. “I can tell you that this story and these allegations are unequivocally false. This never happened – either when I was Secretary of State or since,” he tweeted Monday evening.

When asked for Biden’s reaction to the report on Monday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said, “We’re not going to comment on leaked tapes.”

As secretary of state under the Obama administration, Kerry was America’s lead negotiator of the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal.

After President Donald Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, Kerry admitted to meeting on his own with Zarif in 2018 in an effort to salvage the deal. According to reports, he advised Zarif to hang tough during the Trump years in the hopes that the 2020 elections would lead to a Democratic administration.

Before entering a long career in politics, Kerry served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. Upon his return, he accused his fellow soldiers of committing war crimes before Congress. His actions later came back to haunt him during his 2014 run for the presidency as a group, “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,” formed against him and successfully attacked him on grounds of character as unfit for the White House.

John KerryMohammad Javad ZarifUS Senate