Trump adviser: Obama launched Russia probe to save his Iran deal

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A former adviser to Donald Trump believes the Obama administration launched the bogus Russian-collusion investigation partly because Trump vowed to reverse the Iran nuclear deal.

Obama regarded the agreement as a signature achievement, points out counter-terrorism expert Walid Phares.

An adviser to Mitt Romney in his 2012 campaign and to Trump during his successful 2016 bid, Phares long has been a critic of the Islamic regime for its support of terrorism.

In an interview with Just the News, he said "the push against the Trump campaign, and then the transition, and then the administration was on behalf of those who wanted to defend the Iran deal, to protect the interests of the Iran deal."

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Obama agreed to pay billions of dollars and lift sanctions in exchange for a promise from Iran to freeze its nuclear weapons program.

Trump's election threatened the deal.

"The Obama administration obviously was not happy," Phares said on a podcast with John Solomon of JTN. "Not just because Donald Trump won the election, but they knew that he was about to change things. The most important point that they were concerned about, and that was not a secret, was the fact that Donald Trump said during the campaign that he will be withdrawing, he will be canceling, he used different terminology, the Iran deal."

He noted further that Trump openly discussed shifting alliances in the region.

"He didn't want the partnership with the Muslim Brotherhood. ... So it was a massive change in foreign policy," he said.

Phares disclosed he had been interviewed by the FBI in the Russia collusion probe regarding an issue involving Egypt. But the claim was "spurious," he said, and nothing came of it.

Phares told JTN that Russia had a clear incentive for not wanting Trump to be elected. Moscow sold Iran an S-300 missile defense systems, over U.S. objections, when Obama lifted sanctions.

Obama's decision "allowed an open market in Iran."

"Here we're talking trillions of dollars. So Russia and the Chinese, many interests even in the United States and in Europe were to move in and make huge amounts of money," he said.

"When the candidate Trump started to say 'I'm gonna move out from the Iran deal,' he was sending everybody a message, 'I want to shut down your [financial] interests,'" said Phares.

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the former House Intelligence Committee chairman, has helped lead the unraveling of the false Russia collusion claims. He said Phares was "set up" with now-debunked claims he took pay for arranging meetings with foreign officials.

"I can say with 100% certainty that Walid Phares was targeted for a political dirty trick just like we saw with so many other people in the Russia collusion hoax," Nunes told Just the News.

Senate investigators are reviewing the conduct of the FBI in the Russia case, and U.S. Attorney John Durham is conducting a criminal investigation.

Just the News reported Phares believes history will look back "and see an Obama administration that was unwilling to cede the reins of power and trying instead to hamper the incoming Trump administration from succeeding in its foreign policy goals."