Give Robert Malley the Trial He Deserves

Robert Malley is a curious specimen. He is the son of Simon Malley, a far-left Syrian Jew who worked as a foreign correspondent for the Egyptian government-owned newspaper Al Gomuria, which was a mouthpiece of Nasser’s regime. Simon Malley spent much of his time in New York, writing about — and celebrating — so-called anti-imperial movements in Africa. He especially admired the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), anti-French Arab rebels whose terror tactics used against the French pieds noirs in Algeria apparently did not bother him. With the French gone, the FLN remained in power from 1962 to 1988, the only party in a one-party state. Since then the FLN has ruled as primus inter partes in a series of coalition governments where, no matter what civilians seem to rule, real power remains in the hands of the iron-fisted Algerian military. Some say that it was Simon Malley who put the FLN on the world map. Not something to be proud of.

Malley’s mother, Barbara Silverstein, was also far-left, and like her husband deeply sympathetic to the Algerian National Liberation Front. She even worked for the FLN’s delegation at the UN. Neither seemed disturbed by the antisemitism that was — and is — rife in the FLN, especially that displayed by two of the FLN’s most prominent leaders, Algeria’s first president Ahmed Ben Bella, and his successor, who deposed Ben Bella in a coup, Houari Boumedienne. Simon and Barbara Malley were made for each other as tiers-mondistes, identifying with the Islamic countries of the Third World, while rejecting the West. Their son Robert Malley appears to share their views.

Malley’ family moved to France in 1969 and lived there until 1980, when then French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing expelled Simon Malley from the country to New York, due to his hostility towards French policies in Africa.

The rest of his biography — Yale as an undergraduate, then a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford where he got a D.Phil., then a law degree from Harvard — is punctuated by signs of his fealty to the Third World. He wrote his doctoral thesis at Oxford on “Third-Worldism.” He has continued to write about foreign policy, especially about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Try to guess which side he favored.

Malley, who for a long time, beginning a decade ago, has been involved in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, found himself stripped of his security clearance by the Biden administration in 2023. Apparently some documents about American policy toward Tehran were found to be in the possession of Iranian government officials that, some believe, could only have been given to them by Robert Malley.

He was first placed on paid leave, and then on unpaid leave, and then discharged from the government altogether. But he has still not been charged with any offense, still not put on trial. President Trump can change all that.

It is worth noting that former President Biden had deep misgivings about Malley, because he did not give him the proleptic pardon he provided to others he thought President Trump might come after. It wouldn’t do to pardon someone the government later found guilty of treason.

More on Robert Malley, and the wisdom of putting him on trial, can be found here: “Trump must investigate Robert Malley for treason,” by Eric Levine, JNS, January 24, 2025:

With just minutes left in his administration, former President Joe Biden pardoned five family members. In so doing, he may not have clinched the title of worst president of all time, but he did win the gold medal for being the most cynical and dishonest….

However, there is one pardon Biden did not issue and whose conduct cannot be glossed over or condoned—that of Biden’s special envoy to Iran, Robert Malley. As a May 6 letter to then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho)—former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and current chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, respectively—makes clear, Malley left government under a cloud warranting having his security clearance revoked.

“[W]e understand that Mr. Malley’s security clearance was suspended because he allegedly transferred classified documents to his personal email account and downloaded these documents to his personal cell phone,” they wrote. “It is unclear to whom he intended to provide these documents, but it is believed that a hostile cyber actor was able to gain access to his email and/or phone and obtain the downloaded information.”

Many believe that the “hostile cyber actor” in this case is Iran and that Malley downloaded the classified information to his phone so that it could be transmitted to the Islamic Republic. It is also believed that the information downloaded pertained to U.S. and/or Israeli intelligence regarding Iran’s nuclear program. In light of the Biden administration’s policy of weakness and appeasement toward Iran, Malley’s conduct must have been incredibly egregious for him to have lost his security clearance….

Yet, Malley goes unpunished. To date, his punishment has taken the form of being appointed to the faculty of Princeton University….

Robert Malley was privy to important secrets — what American, and Israeli intelligence, knew about Iran’s nuclear program, including the location of all of its nuclear-related facilities? He downloaded this information to his phone — why? Was he planning to transfer it to Iran, or did he in fact manage to do so? Given all the rumors swirling around him, and his having been stripped of his security clearance, if he is innocent, he deserves to have his trial so that such rumors can be put to rest. And if he is guilty…