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Brennan, Strzok, Page subpoenaed as part of federal Russiagate probe: Sources
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EXCLUSIVE: A federal grand jury has subpoenaed former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, among others as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, Fox News Digital has learned.
Sources told Fox News Digital Brennan; Strzok, the FBI’s former deputy assistant director of counterintelligence; and Page, a former FBI lawyer, were served with federal subpoenas on Friday.
John Brennan, Former CIA Director; NBC News Senior National Security and Intelligence Analyst, appears on «Meet the Press» in Washington, D.C., Sunday, April 15, 2018. (William B. Plowman/NBC/NBC Newswire/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
Law enforcement sources told Fox News Digital that up to 30 subpoenas will be issued in the coming days relating to the investigation.
The grand jury is out of the Southern District of Florida. U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason Reding Quiñones is supervising the probe.
Fox News Digital first reported this summer that Brennan was under criminal investigation.
Strzok and Page first came under scrutiny in 2018 when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz uncovered a series of anti-Trump text messages between them. Both were assigned to work on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team in 2017.
Page served on Mueller’s team on a short detail, returning to the FBI’s Office of General Counsel in July 2017. Strzok, though, was removed from the team and was reassigned to the FBI’s Human Resources Division. Prior to serving in the special counsel’s office, Strzok was a top agent in the bureau’s counterintelligence division.
Strzok is the FBI agent who, in July 2016, opened the FBI’s initial Russia investigation, which was nicknamed «Crossfire Hurricane» inside the bureau.
(Chip Somodevilla / Staff ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / Contributor)
Page resigned from the bureau in May 2018, and Strzok eventually was fired in August 2018.
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Strzok was fired from the bureau in August 2018 after months of scrutiny regarding the anti-Trump text messages exchanged between himself and Page.
During congressional testimony in 2018, Strzok confirmed that he and Page were involved in an extramarital affair.
As for the criminal investigation into Brennan, CIA Director John Ratcliffe referred evidence of wrongdoing by Brennan to FBI Director Kash Patel for potential prosecution, DOJ sources told Fox News Digital.
Sources, at the time, said that the referral was received and told Fox News Digital that a criminal investigation into Brennan was opened and is underway. DOJ sources declined to provide further details. It is unclear, at this point, if the investigation spans beyond his alleged false statements to Congress.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi (L) and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel look on as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in the Oval Office of the White House on Oct. 15, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The Brennan investigation came after Ratcliffe, this summer, declassified a «lessons learned» review of the creation of the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA). The 2017 ICA alleged Russia sought to influence the 2016 presidential election to help then-candidate Donald Trump. But the review found that the process of the ICA’s creation was rushed with «procedural anomalies,» and that officials diverted from intelligence standards.
It also determined that the «decision by agency heads to include the Steele Dossier in the ICA ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment.»
The dossier — an anti-Trump document filled with unverified and wholly inaccurate claims that was commissioned by Fusion GPS and paid for by Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC — has been widely discredited. Last week’s review marks the first time career CIA officials have acknowledged politicization of the process by which the ICA was written, particularly by Obama-era political appointees.
Records declassified as part of that review further revealed that Brennan did, in fact, push for the dossier to be included in the 2017 ICA.
Brennan testified to the House Judiciary Committee in May 2023, however, that he did not believe the dossier should be included in that intelligence product.
Ratcliffe was not surprised by the review’s findings, a source familiar told Fox News Digital, given the director’s long history of criticizing Brennan’s politicization of intelligence. But Ratcliffe was compelled to refer aspects of Brennan’s involvement to the FBI for review of possible criminality, the source said.
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The source was unable to share the sensitive details of Ratcliffe’s criminal referral to the FBI with Fox News Digital, but said that Brennan «violated the public’s trust and should be held accountable for it.»
CIA Director John Ratcliffe, flanked by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, left, and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Jeffrey Kruse, testifies as the House Intelligence Committee holds a hearing on worldwide threats, at the Capitol, in Washington, on Wednesday, March 26. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)
The false statements portion of the probe stems from a newly declassified email sent to Brennan by the former deputy CIA director in December 2016. That message said that including the dossier in the ICA in any capacity jeopardized «the credibility of the entire paper.»
«Despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness,» the new CIA review states. «When confronted with specific flaws in the Dossier by the two mission center leaders – one with extensive operational experience and the other with a strong analytic background – he appeared more swayed by the Dossier’s general conformity with existing theories than by legitimate tradecraft concerns.»
Former President Barack Obama and former CIA director John Brennan in the East Room at the White House on Jan. 7, 2013, in Washington, D.C. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
The review added: «Brennan ultimately formalized his position in writing, stating that ‘my bottomline is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.’»
OBAMA ADMIN ‘MANUFACTURED’ INTELLIGENCE TO CREATE 2016 RUSSIAN ELECTION INTERFERENCE NARRATIVE, DOCUMENTS SHOW
But Brennan testified the opposite in front of Congress in May 2023.
«The CIA was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment,» Brennan testified before the House committee, according to the transcript of his deposition reviewed by Fox News Digital. «And so they sent over a copy of the dossier to say that this was going to be separate from the rest of that assessment.»
CIA officials at the time of its creation pushed back against the FBI, which sought to include the dossier, arguing that the dossier should not be included in the assessment, and casting it as simply «internet rumor.»
Ultimately, Steele’s reporting was not included in the body of the final ICA prepared for then-President Barack Obama, but instead detailed in this footnote, «largely at the insistence of FBI’s senior leadership,» according to a review by the Justice Department inspector general, and later, the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who set up Orbis Business Intelligence and compiled a dossier on Donald Trump. ((Photo by Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images))
But back in June 2020, Ratcliffe, while serving as director of national intelligence, declassified a footnote of the 2017 ICA, which revealed that the reporting of Trump dossier author Christopher Steele had only «limited corroboration» regarding whether then-President-elect Trump «knowingly worked with Russian officials to bolster his chances of beating» Hillary Clinton and other claims.
FLASHBACK: DNI DECLASSIFIES BRENNAN NOTES, CIA MEMO ON HILLARY CLINTON ‘STIRRING UP’ SCANDAL BETWEEN TRUMP, RUSSIA
The footnote, also known as «Annex A» of the 2017 ICA, exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital in June 2020, spanned less than two pages and detailed reporting by Steele, the former British spy who authored the unverified anti-Trump dossier — a document that helped serve as the basis for controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants obtained against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
Steele’s reporting, at the time, was commissioned by opposition research firm Fusion GPS and funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) through law firm Perkins Coie.
The footnote made clear the internal concerns officials had over that document.
«An FBI source (Steele) using both identified and unidentified subsources, volunteered highly politically sensitive information from the summer to the fall of 2016 on Russian influence efforts aimed at the US presidential election,» the annex read. «We have only limited corroboration of the source’s reporting in this case and did not use it to reach the analytic conclusions of the CIA/FBI/NSA assessment.»
«The source collected this information on behalf of private clients and was not compensated for it by the FBI,» it continued.
But the annex notes that Steele’s reporting was «not developed by the layered subsource network.»
«The FBI source caveated that, although similar to previously provided reporting in terms of content, the source was unable to vouch for the additional information’s sourcing and accuracy,» the annex states. «Hence this information is not included in this product.»
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Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz also reviewed the inclusion of Steele’s reporting in the ICA during his review of alleged misconduct related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.
His report, released in late 2019, found that there were «significant inaccuracies and omissions» in FISA warrants for former Trump campaign aide Page. Those warrants relied heavily on Steele’s reporting, despite the FBI not having had specific information corroborating allegations against Page that were included in Steele’s reporting.
Meanwhile, Fox News Digital exclusively reported in October 2020 that Brennan briefed former President Obama and administration officials on intelligence that then-Democrat nominee former Secretary of State Clinton was stirring up a plan to tie Trump to Russia.
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, pictured May 29, 2019, is the latest person to testify in the House Oversight Committee’s probe into Jeffrey Epstein. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Ratcliffe, as director of national intelligence, declassified Brennan’s handwritten notes memorializing that meeting, which were exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital in October 2020.
On July 28, 2016, Brennan briefed Obama on a plan from one of Clinton’s campaign foreign policy advisors «to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.»
Comey, then-Vice President Joe Biden, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper were in the Brennan-Obama briefing.
FLASHBACK: DECLASSIFIED TRUMP-RUSSIA PROBE DOCS TO DATE: WHAT TO KNOW
After that briefing, the CIA properly forwarded that information through a Counterintelligence Operational Lead (CIOL) to Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok, with the subject line: «Crossfire Hurricane.»
Fox News Digital exclusively obtained and reported on the CIOL in October 2020, which stated: «The following information is provided for the exclusive use of your bureau for background investigative action or lead purposes as appropriate.»
«Per FBI verbal request, CIA provides the below examples of information the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE fusion cell has gleaned to date,» the memo continued. «An exchange (REDACTED) discussing US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.»
Former FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee about his interactions with President Donald Trump and the Russia investigation on June 8, 2017, in Washington, D.C. (Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The FBI on July 31, 2016, opened a counterintelligence investigation into whether candidate Trump and members of his campaign were colluding or coordinating with Russia to influence the 2016 campaign. That investigation was referred to inside the bureau as «Crossfire Hurricane.»
Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to take over the FBI’s original «Crossfire Hurricane» investigation. After nearly two years, Mueller’s investigation, which concluded in March 2019, yielded no evidence of criminal conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 presidential election.
Shortly after, John Durham was appointed as special counsel to investigate the origins of the «Crossfire Hurricane» probe.
Durham found that the FBI «failed to act» on a «clear warning sign» that the bureau was the «target» of a Clinton-led effort to «manipulate or influence the law enforcement process for political purposes» ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Jeff Durham, Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton (Associated Press)
«The aforementioned facts reflect a rather startling and inexplicable failure to adequately consider and incorporate the Clinton Plan intelligence into the FBI’s investigative decision-making in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,» Durham’s report states.
«Indeed, had the FBI opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation as an assessment and, in turn, gathered and analyzed data in concert with the information from the Clinton Plan intelligence, it is likely that the information received would have been examined, at a minimum, with a more critical eye,» the report continued.
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Durham, in his report, said the FBI «failed to act on what should have been—when combined with other incontrovertible facts— a clear warning sign that the FBI might then be the target of an effort to manipulate or influence the law enforcement process for political purposes during the 2016 presidential election.»
The Justice Department, earlier this year, formed a «strike force» to assess evidence publicized by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard relating to former President Barack Obama and his top national security and intelligence officials’ alleged involvement in the origins of the Trump–Russia collusion narrative.
Meanwhile, Fox News Digital also first reported that Comey was under criminal investigation. Comey has been charged with making false statements and obstruction of a congressional proceeding.
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Comey has pleaded not guilty. His trial is expected to begin in January.
justice department,fbi,kash patel,pam bondi
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El fundador de Telegram afirmó que 65 millones de rusos acceden a la app con VPN pese a la censura impuesta por Putin
La campaña de bloqueo y censura impulsada por el gobierno de Vladimir Putin contra Telegram -y otras plataformas- provocó una interrupción bancaria nacional y no logró frenar el uso de la aplicación, según su fundador Pavel Durov, quien afirmó que 65 millones de rusos siguen conectados a diario mediante VPN.
Las restricciones impuestas por las autoridades rusas a Telegram y a las redes privadas virtuales, conocidas como VPN, tuvieron efectos de alcance inesperado. De acuerdo con The Moscow Times y otros medios internacionales, el intento de bloqueo derivó en fallas masivas en el sistema bancario nacional, afectando pagos con tarjeta, cajeros automáticos y transferencias. Las entidades Sberbank, VTB y T-Bank notificaron fallos el 3 de abril, coincidiendo con la fase más intensa de la ofensiva digital.
En este contexto, Pavel Durov, fundador de Telegram, utilizó su propio canal en la plataforma para asegurar que más de 65 millones de personas en Rusia acceden cada día a la aplicación, pese al bloqueo, y que más de 50 millones envían mensajes diariamente. Durov calificó el fenómeno como una “Resistencia Digital”, en la que decenas de millones de usuarios emplean VPN y servidores proxy para sortear la censura.
Durov recordó que una estrategia similar en Irán solo generó un uso masivo de herramientas de evasión. “El gobierno esperaba migraciones hacia apps de vigilancia, pero solo consiguió que millones adoptaran VPN”, afirmó el empresario, quien prometió adaptar el tráfico de Telegram para dificultar su detección y bloqueo por parte de los sistemas de inspección rusos.
La ofensiva regulatoria fue liderada por Roskomnadzor, el regulador de internet de Rusia, que en febrero pasado comenzó a ralentizar el acceso y, a partir del 1 de abril, activó un bloqueo nacional. El objetivo oficial era redirigir a los usuarios hacia plataformas de mensajería alineadas con el Estado, como Max, una aplicación obligatoria en nuevos dispositivos desde 2025.
Especialistas en ciberseguridad, como Fyodor Muzalevsky de RTM Group, explicaron a The Moscow Times que el bloqueo de direcciones IP vinculadas a servicios financieros contribuyó a la caída bancaria. El incidente dejó fuera de servicio terminales de pago, cajeros y aplicaciones de banca móvil en todo el país. El metro de Moscú incluso permitió el acceso gratuito y comercios de la capital solo aceptaron efectivo durante horas.
La presión estatal crece sobre los servicios de mensajería y las VPN. El Ministerio de Desarrollo Digital ruso ordenó a las plataformas restringir el acceso a usuarios de VPN antes del 15 de abril, y analiza multas de hasta 30.000 rublos para quienes utilicen herramientas no autorizadas. Reuters destacó que Roskomnadzor ya bloqueó más de 400 servicios de VPN desde mayo de 2025, un aumento del 70% en comparación con el año anterior.
La respuesta social, según datos de Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, se refleja en cifras de uso: Telegram sumó cerca de 96 millones de usuarios en enero de 2026 antes de las restricciones. Aunque la cifra descendió tras el bloqueo, el mantenimiento de 65 millones de usuarios diarios ilustra la persistencia de la plataforma incluso bajo prohibición.
El conflicto digital abarca también otros servicios. Las autoridades intensificaron restricciones sobre aplicaciones extranjeras, como WhatsApp, luego de que su matriz, Meta, supuestamente incumpliera la legislación nacional. El portavoz del Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, instó a la población a migrar a servicios estatales.
Los apagones de internet móvil se suman a la estrategia de control. Desde mayo de 2025, en 83 regiones rusas se han reportado cortes selectivos de conectividad, que solo permiten acceso a sitios aprobados por el gobierno. Este modelo incrementa la dependencia de herramientas de evasión para acceder a información y servicios básicos.
Telegram, además de mensajería, se consolidó como fuente principal de noticias y coordinación social, llegando incluso a ser utilizada por militares rusos en el conflicto de Ucrania, según The Moscow Times. El bloqueo de la plataforma tiene así consecuencias que trascienden lo tecnológico y afectan la operatividad social y política en el país.
De esta manera, el gobierno de Putin enfrenta la disyuntiva de endurecer el control sobre VPN y plataformas digitales, o ajustar su estrategia para evitar nuevos daños colaterales. Mientras tanto, la “Resistencia Digital” de millones de usuarios persiste, desafiando las restricciones y adaptando sus métodos para permanecer conectados.
Business,Corporate Events,Europe
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A de facto pro forma: Why Washington fixated these sessions as the DHS shutdown dragged on through recess
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Carpe diem. If you’ve wondered why all of Washington buzzed so much this week about «pro forma» sessions in the House and Senate, here’s your chance to find out why.
Come on now. Tempus fugit. There’s no time like the present. Hopefully, when you finish reading this, you can declare veni, vidi, vici when it comes to your understanding of pro forma sessions in the House and Senate.
Let’s start with what pro forma means and why it holds application in Congress.
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In Latin, «pro forma» refers to «a matter of form.» In other words, something appears real, but it’s just perfunctory. For decades, the House and Senate have used the parliamentary artifice of a «pro forma» session to adhere to the Constitutional requirement of meeting every three days.
Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution states that «Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.» That means the House and Senate must convene at three-day intervals — unless both bodies approved the same «adjournment resolution» to allow one another to depart Washington for an extended period of time. In other words, the House and Senate must vote and agree to be out at the same time. And if there’s no consensus on an adjournment resolution, the House and Senate technically must «meet» every three days.
The House and Senate often fail to sync up on an adjournment resolution because the party opposite the President wants to block him from using his power to install cabinet officials or other figures via a «recess appointment» — thus circumnavigating the Senate confirmation process. That makes it challenging to approve an adjournment resolution. But that’s another matter.
Sunrise light hits the U.S. Capitol dome on Thursday, January 2, 2025. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Back to pro forma sessions.
Sans an adjournment resolution, the House and Senate simply gavel in and gavel out every three days. There is (usually) no legislative business. These are pro forma sessions. The House and Senate meet «in form.» But don’t accomplish anything. There’s often only one lawmaker on hand — the person who presides. House pro forma sessions usually run two or three minutes. Senate sessions are even more abbreviated — usually lasting 25 to 35 seconds.
What constitutes a Congressional meeting? Just those few seconds of session time suffices.
Some years ago, senators actually held an informal competition, racing through pro formas in an attempt to see who could conduct the meeting the fastest. The quickest pro forma session clocked in at a blistering 21 seconds.
Here’s the parliamentary posture of the House and Senate last week:
The Senate adjourned for the day in the wee hours on Friday, March 28. The House followed suit just before midnight the same night. Without an adjournment resolution, both would meet the next Tuesday. Therefore, if the House or Senate wouldn’t have to meet again until Tuesday.
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There’s nothing written prohibiting the House or Senate from conducting legislative business during a pro forma session. In other words, either body just has to conduct some legislative business to convert a pro forma session into a de facto session. So that’s why it was though that the Senate’s pro forma session on Tuesday was ripe for activity as the DHS shutdown continued.
Some House Republicans demanded that the Senate align with what the House passed Friday night: a bill which funded all of the Department of Homeland Security for two months.
The Senate gaveled to order on Tuesday morning around 10:33 am et (a couple of moments late). Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., presided. But after 31 seconds, Hoeven adjourned the Senate without any business. Hoeven himself — or any senator — could have tried to pass the House bill with the skeleton crew on hand. Sen. Chris Coons, D-D.E., was the only other senator in the chamber. Coons or anyone else could have sought recognition to speak. But none of that happened.
Amid the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has not had his immigration reform demands met while Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., passed rival DHS funding proposals. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images; Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
And then the Senate adjourned, only to meet again Thursday morning (note the three-day interlude) at 7 a.m. for another pro forma session.
Pro forma sessions are customarily one of the most dull exercises in Congress. A skeleton crew of floor staff are there. Those asked to preside over the sessions are lawmakers who need to be in Washington for some reason over a recess or those who don’t go home often. Depending on which party has the majority, lawmakers from Maryland, Virginia or West Virginia frequently preside — simply because they are nearby. A limited number of reporters surface. They’re all thirsty for a quote or soundbite — simply because so few other lawmakers are available thanks to the recess. The whole enterprise starts and wraps up within minutes and everyone goes back home.
But that was not the case with last Tuesday’s Senate session. Everyone wanted to see if Republicans might try to approve the House-passed DHS bill. Or for that matter, if the House may attempt to align with the Senate and pass its bill. Neither happened. Even though a flood of reporters descended on the Capitol.
BEHIND THE SCENES OF CONGRESS’ ELEVENTH-HOUR RUSH TO FUND THE DHS
But the drama was higher this past Thursday morning. On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., dramatically reversed himself and consented to the Senate-passed bill to fund all the Department of Homeland Security through Oct. 1 — except the Border Patrol and ICE. Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., published a joint statement endorsing the Senate’s strategy. And so around dawn on Thursday, Thune himself showed up to pass the Senate package again.
The presence of the Majority or Minority Leader on the floor during a pro forma session is nearly unprecedented. It’s a magna momemti when it comes to a pro forma meeting.
A Transportation Security Administration agent watches as passengers queue for security screening at LaGuardia Airport in New York City on March 22. (Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)
This was not an ordinary pro forma. And even though nothing happened on Tuesday, neither of those sessions were far from the customary pro formas Congress usually sees during a recess.
It was presumed that the House would align in its pro forma session later Thursday morning. But consternation gripped the House Republican Conference. How was Johnson suddenly endorsing the Senate deal which he just characterized as a «joke» a few days earlier? That’s to say nothing of Johnson twisting himself in multiple knots and aggravating all wings of the GOP Conference.
So the House took no action. Which is why DHS remains shut down since the House and Senate have magnified the scope and potential for all four pro forma sessions held in recent days.
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It turns out that all of these high-profile pro forma sessions were just bona fide pro forma sessions.
Nil actum est. Congress didn’t accomplish anything. Again.
house of representatives politics, senate, government shutdown, politics, john thune, chuck schumer
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El piloto desaparecido en Irán reaviva el fantasma de la crisis de los rehenes de 1979 y deja a Estados Unidos en alerta máxima
El derribo de un avión de combate estadounidense sobre territorio iraní y la intensa búsqueda de uno de sus tripulantes han generado preocupación de que pueda ser capturado y proporcionar a Irán un valioso recurso que podría utilizar para presionar a Estados Unidos.
La operación de rescate se encontraba en su segundo día este sábado, con tropas estadounidenses realizando una búsqueda exhaustiva y el ejército iraní también intentando encontrar al tripulante.
Como muestra del afán del régimen por atrapar al aviador, un presentador de una filial local de la cadena estatal iraní leyó el viernes en televisión un comunicado en el que instaba a los residentes a capturar al «piloto o pilotos enemigos» y entregarlos vivos a las fuerzas de seguridad a cambio de una recompensa.
La posibilidad de que Irán capture al aviador evoca el temor a una repetición de la crisis de rehenes de Irán de 1979, un suceso traumático en la historia estadounidense que sentó las bases de casi cinco décadas de relaciones hostiles entre Estados Unidos e Irán.
La crisis, en la que estudiantes militantes tomaron la embajada estadounidense en Teherán y mantuvieron cautivos a 52 estadounidenses durante 444 días, sentó un precedente para Irán que perfeccionaría en las décadas siguientes como forma de acaparar titulares internacionales, infligir daño a sus adversarios y obtener concesiones.
Desde 1979, el gobierno iraní ha utilizado repetidamente la toma de rehenes como táctica contra sus adversarios. Ha detenido a estadounidenses, europeos y otros ciudadanos extranjeros, a veces manteniéndolos encarcelados durante años antes de liberarlos, a menudo a cambio de dinero o la liberación de sus propios ciudadanos encarcelados en el extranjero. Ha utilizado a los rehenes como herramientas de propaganda y para obtener influencia.
La crisis de 1979 marcó el último año de la presidencia de Jimmy Carter y, para muchos, se convirtió en un símbolo de sus fracasos.
Donald Trump ha criticado repetidamente la gestión de la crisis de rehenes por parte del Carter, calificándola de «patética». En 1980, declaró a un periodista: «Que este país se quede de brazos cruzados y permita que un país como Irán retenga a nuestros rehenes, a mi parecer, es un horror, y no creo que lo harían con otros países».
Hamidreza Azizi, experto en seguridad iraní del Instituto Alemán de Asuntos Internacionales y de Seguridad, una organización de investigación, afirmó que Irán podría adoptar dos estrategias si logra capturar al aviador.
Si la captura se mantiene en secreto, los iraníes podrían contactar a Estados Unidos en privado y llegar a un acuerdo secreto, exigiendo concesiones a cambio de la liberación del tripulante. O bien, Irán podría exhibir al aviador ante las cámaras como propaganda.
Según él, esa era la estrategia más probable. «Realmente quieren proyectar esta imagen de victoria y, además, humillar a Trump», afirmó Azizi.
Ali Alfoneh, investigador principal del Instituto de los Estados Árabes del Golfo, con sede en Washington, mencionó un incidente de 2007 en el que Irán capturó a marineros británicos, alegando que sus embarcaciones habían entrado ilegalmente en aguas iraníes. Los marineros fueron vendados, amenazados y sometidos a presión psicológica antes de prestar declaración en vídeo, en la que parecían disculparse. Sin embargo, no se reportó que sufrieran daños físicos, señaló Alfoneh.
“El entonces presidente Mahmoud Ahmadinejad aprovechó al máximo la cobertura mediática internacional al anunciar su liberación y les estrechó la mano personalmente”, declaró el Alfoneh en un correo electrónico. Añadió que el trato al aviador estadounidense probablemente sería diferente, dado que Estados Unidos e Irán están en guerra.
Incluso si el tripulante desaparecido es rescatado, el incidente subraya los riesgos de realizar misiones sobre territorio hostil contra un adversario con capacidad de represalia. Las operaciones de rescate son intrínsecamente peligrosas porque ponen en riesgo a otros miembros del servicio estadounidense.
Fuente: The New York Times
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Milei se pone al frente de la defensa de Adorni y lo suma a un acto por Malvinas en una nueva muestra de respaldo
Oriana Sabatini sorprendió al elegir a una famosa como madrina de Gia, su hija con Paulo Dybala
Banco lanza un plazo fijo inédito: sigue a la inflación y permite retirar intereses todos los meses
POLITICA3 días agoMilei se pone al frente de la defensa de Adorni y lo suma a un acto por Malvinas en una nueva muestra de respaldo
- CHIMENTOS2 días ago
Oriana Sabatini sorprendió al elegir a una famosa como madrina de Gia, su hija con Paulo Dybala
- POLITICA2 días ago
La Armada sorteará 30 lugares en el buque que escoltará la salida de la Fragata Libertad: cómo anotarse
