Instead of pressuring Iran to release Levinson, Barack Obama let him languish in prison there so as not to endanger the Iranian nuclear deal that endangered the entire world.
“Family: US believes ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson has died,” by Eric Tucker, Associated Press, March 25, 2020
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government has concluded that retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished more than a decade ago, died while in the custody of Iran, his family and administration officials said Wednesday.
The circumstances and timing of Levinson’s death were unclear, but White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien said Wednesday evening that the U.S. believes Levinson “may have passed away some time ago.” Hours earlier, his family said information U.S. officials had received had led them to conclude he was dead. Neither the government nor the family described that information.
The death is believed to have occurred before the recent outbreak of the coronavirus that has gravely affected Iran and another countries, according to a statement from Levinson’s family.
The government’s acknowledgment of Levinson’s death came hours after a White House briefing in which President Donald Trump appeared to equivocate on the news, saying, “I won’t accept that he’s dead.”
U.S. officials communicated the news to Levinson’s family in a meeting in Washington in recent weeks, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private encounter. The person said the information about Levinson had come from Iran’s foreign minister.
“It is impossible to describe our pain,” the family’s statement said. “Our family will spend the rest of our lives without the most amazing man, a new reality that is inconceivable to us. His grandchildren will never meet him. They will only know him through the stories we tell them.’
Levinson disappeared on March 9, 2007, when he was scheduled to meet a source on the Iranian island of Kish. For years, U.S. officials would say only that Levinson was working independently on a private investigation. But a 2013 Associated Press investigation revealed that Levinson had been sent on a mission by CIA analysts who had no authority to run such an operation.
The Trump administration has made it a priority to seek the release of American hostages and prisoners detained overseas. Last week, administration officials touted the release from Lebanon of a New Hampshire restaurant owner jailed on decades-old allegations and the medical furlough of a Navy veteran from an Iranian prison….