WASHINGTON (Dispatches) -- The influential House Committee of Education and the Workforce has launched an investigation into the role of Hussein Mousavian at Princeton University under the belief that he was advancing the interests of Iran, Fox News reported.
Twelve Republican committee members sent a letter to Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber with detailed questions about the alleged influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran via Mousavian’s activities on the campus of the New Jersey-based Ivy League institution.
Rep. Lisa McClain who along with Rep. Jim Banks spearheaded the letter to Princeton, told Fox News Digital said the mere fact that Mousavian had ben given a platform at Princeton was “proof” that “higher education has bowed down to the radical left and enemies of America for far too long”.
According to Fox News, Mousavian’s conduct raised alarm bells from pro-Israeli United Against a Nuclear Iran after he attended the funeral of General Qassem Soleimani in Tehran in 2020 and appeared in a tribute to the legendary commander in a 2022 Iran TV program. Mousavian said on Iranian TV that an American told him, “The wife of Brian Hook could not sleep for a few nights now” because she feared her husband, Hook, the former U.S. Iran envoy at the time of the assassination of Soleimani, would face retaliation from Tehran.”
The U.S. military assassinated Gen. Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, in January 2020 in Iraq where he was for official talks.
“When President Trump had General Soleimani assassinated, I was in Iran to visit my mother who was hospitalized,” Mousavian told Fox News Digital.
“As a researcher, I attended the funeral of General Soleimani to see the reaction to this assassination. Seven million attended Soleimani’s funeral in Tehran and 20 million in other cities in total. This was clear evidence of General Soleimani’s popularity.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx, who chairs the Education and the Workforce Committee, said Mousavian posed “a grave threat to America’s national security posture” for expressing his opinion.
Mousavian specializes in Middle East security and nuclear policy.
He was Iran’s former ambassador to Germany. He was arrested in 2007 over espionage charges and ultimately stripped of diplomatic work.
Nevertheless, Rep. Banks called Mousavian “a longtime Iranian propagandist who only knows how to teach anti-Israel, antisemitic lies”.
“Princeton should immediately cut ties with Mr. Mousavian and the other Iran apologist on their payroll, Rob Malley, Joe Biden’s disgraced former envoy who is currently under federal investigation for mishandling classified information.”