Trita Parsi

So we knew that something was coming in the free press.

They had reached out.

We had no interest in talking to them.

We don't consider them to be a legitimate outlet in any way, shape, or form.

But also we knew that Laura Loomer had been tweeting for a couple of weeks now trying to get me deported.

And obviously she has a track record of every once in a while getting her way.

So we knew that there was an escalation of their attempts to silence me.

As I write in my Substack piece about this, they've been trying to silence and cancel me for more than 25 years.

The only difference now is that they're really going much further and they're trying to actually deport me, or at least they say.

But what was really fascinating here is that within hours of this report coming out, the State Department came out and denied it, which is extremely unusual.

But they came out and said that they don't have any plans, at least now, to deport me.

And part of the reason why that happened is partly because of this public backlash that occurred, which was completely organic.

We had nothing to do with it.

and partly because there were elements inside the Trump administration that opposed this as well.

And I think that led to this very unusual move of the State Department coming out and denying and essentially just completely blowing that story away.

It was all based on one

unnamed source in the State Department.

And as I heard from some people inside, it may actually have been a rogue actor that hoped that by getting this story out there, it could trigger an investigation rather than there actually having been an investigation to begin with.

But for now, it does seem to me that this backfired on them.

But I don't think that they have given up.