F.B.I. Is Investigating Retired U.S. Diplomat, a Pakistan Expert // Eavesdropping on Pakistani Official Led to Inquiry
WASHINGTON — F.B.I. counterintelligence
agents are investigating a veteran American diplomat suspected of taking
classified information home from the State Department, and have searched her
house and office for evidence, government officials said Friday. The diplomat,
Robin L. Raphel, is a retired ambassador and an expert on Pakistan who until recently was an adviser to
the State Department’s special representative for Afghanistan
and Pakistan .
The officials said that after the F.B.I. searches, Ms. Raphel was put on leave
and her contract was allowed to expire.
The nature of the investigation is unclear, but officials
said the F.B.I. was trying to determine why Ms. Raphel apparently brought
classified information home, and whether she had passed, or was planning to
pass, the information to a foreign government.
F.B.I. counterintelligence agents have a broad mandate —
including tracking foreign spies inside the United States , investigating
American citizens suspected of spying for other nations, and examining the
mishandling of classified information.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity
because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation, did not
give details about why they were examining Ms. Raphel’s activities. Nor did
they say whether she was officially a target of the investigation. It is
extremely rare for the F.B.I. to open a counterintelligence investigation into
such a prominent Washington
figure. Any decision by the Justice Department to open the inquiry would have
had to take into account that an investigation — whatever its outcome — will
have a lasting impact on Ms. Raphel’s ability in the future to operate within
American diplomatic circles. One official said on Friday that Ms. Raphel had
been stripped of her security clearances as part of the investigation.
Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said in a
statement that the department was “cooperating with our law enforcement
colleagues on this matter.” “Ms. Raphel’s appointment expired,” Ms. Psaki said.
“She is no longer a department employee.”
Andrew Rice, a spokesman for Ms. Raphel, said that she had
not been informed whether she was a target of the investigation, adding that
“her nearly 40 years of public service at the highest levels of U.S. diplomacy
speak for themselves.”“I’m confident this will be resolved,” Mr. Rice said.
The Washington Post first reported the investigation on its
website Thursday night.
Ms. Raphel, 67, is a fixture in Washington foreign policy circles and is one
of the State Department’s highest-ranking female diplomats. She served as
ambassador to Tunisia and as
assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs in the Clinton administration. The 9/11 Commission
interviewed Ms. Raphel about her experiences dealing with Pakistan ’s
government and about her official meetings with the Afghan Taliban.
According to the commission’s report, Ms. Raphel “noted how Washington used one ideology, radical Islam, to defeat
another, communism, in Afghanistan .”
“This, she cautioned, while successful in the short run, came back to haunt the
U.S. ,”
the report said. “As a result, policy makers should consider the dangers when
working with highly ideological movements.” Ms. Raphel retired from the Foreign
Service in 2005 and joined Cassidy & Associates, a firm that has done
lobbying work for the government of Pakistan .
In 2009, the American Embassy in Pakistan hired her to help
administer billions of dollars of development aid to the country. She returned
to Washington in 2011 as a senior adviser on Pakistan issues for the State Department’s
special representative for Afghanistan
and Pakistan .
In 1988, Ms. Raphel’s former husband, Arnold
L. Raphel, then the American ambassador to Pakistan, was killed in a mysterious plane crash with Gen.
Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, the president of Pakistan. There are numerous theories
about the cause of the crash, including that it was an assassination and that
nerve gas in a canister hidden in a crate of mangoes was dispersed in the
plane’s air-conditioning system.
News of the investigation into Ms. Raphel was greeted with
apprehension in Islamabad , where she is viewed
by many as one of the few American officials sympathetic toward Pakistan ’s government, which has had a turbulent
relationship with Washington Pakistan , a
reason she was disliked in India Pakistan
American investigators launched an
espionage investigation of former U.S. diplomat Robin L.
Raphel following the interception of a conversation earlier in 2014
in which a Pakistani official suggested that his government was receiving
American secrets from a ‘prominent former State Department diplomat’, according
to a report in New York Times.
Ms. Raphel was secretly spied upon for
months by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and in October, it raided
the former diplomat’s residence to discover classified information, the
report quoted U.S officials as saying.
She has been stripped of her
security clearances last month and no longer has access to the State Department
building.
Ms. Raphel, aged 67, is considered one of
the leading American experts on Pakistan Tunisia
and as assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs in the Clinton
In 1988, Ms. Raphel’s former
husband, Arnold L. Raphel, then the American ambassador to Pakistan , was killed in a mysterious plane crash
with the president of Pakistan
Ms. Raphel is among a generation of
diplomats who rose through the ranks of the State Department at a time when Pakistan was among America ’s
closest allies and a reliable bulwark against the Soviet
Union . After retiring from the government in 2005, she lobbied on
behalf of the Pakistani government before accepting a contract to work as a
State Department adviser, says the report.
She has has not been charged with a crime.
The scope of the investigation is not known, and it is unclear exactly what the
Pakistani official said in the intercepted conversation that led to suspicion
about Ms. Raphel. It is also not clear whether the conversation was by
telephone, email or some other form of communication, adds the report.
