Robin Lynn Raphel
Raphel at the Pakistani American Congress Annual Meeting, 2012
14th U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia
In office
7 November 1997 – 6 August 2000
PresidentBill Clinton
Preceded byMary Ann Casey
Succeeded byRust Macpherson Deming
1st Assistant Secretary of State for
South and Central Asian Affairs
In office
2 August 1993 – 27 June 1997
PresidentBill Clinton
Preceded byInaugural holder
Succeeded byKarl Inderfurth
Personal details
Born
Robin Lynn Johnson

1947
Vancouver, Washington
Spouse(s)Arnold L. Raphel (1972-1982)[1]
Leonard A. Ashton (1990-?)(div)
ChildrenTwo daughters: Alexandra and Anna
Alma materUniversity of Washington, B.A. History & Economics (1965-1969)
University of Maryland, M.A. Economics (1972-1974)
ProfessionCareer diplomat
Lobbyist
Government consultant

Robin Lynn Raphel (born 1947) is an American former diplomat, ambassador, CIA analyst, lobbyist, and an expert on Pakistan affairs.

In 1993, she was appointed by President Bill Clinton as the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs. She later served as U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia from November 7, 1997 to August 6, 2000, during Clinton's second term in office. In the 2000s, Raphel held a number of South Asia-related diplomatic positions. She retired from the State Department in 2005 after 30 years of service.

After retirement, Raphel was hired to head the global affairs and trade group of Cassidy & Associates, a DC lobbying firm. She returned to the State Department in 2009 as a senior adviser on Pakistan under Richard Holbrooke, during the tenure of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Until November 2, 2014, she served as coordinator for non-military assistance to Pakistan.

Raphel was the subject of a federal counterintelligence investigation. Surveillance of her communications began in February, 2013 and became public knowledge in October, 2014. She was suspected of being a Pakistani asset. After abandoning the claim that she had been spying, the FBI urged Raphel to plead guilty to mishandling classified documents. Raphel refused the plea deal, and in March 2016, the Justice Department declined to file charges against her.

Early life and education

Robin Lynn Johnson was born in Vancouver, Washington in 1947[2] to Vera and Donald Johnson, a manager of an aluminum plant.[3][4] She has two sisters, Karen Freeze and Deborah Johnson.[4][5] She graduated from high school in Longview, Washington in 1965.[6]

She received a B.A. in history and economics from the University of Washington in 1969. During her undergraduate years she studied history at the University of London, and would later return to England after graduation to study for a year at Cambridge University.[7] In 1970, she took a position as a teacher at Damavand College, an Iranian women's college in Tehran, where she taught history for two years. She earned her master's degree in economics from the University of Maryland.[8]

Career

Early diplomatic career

Robin Raphel began her career in the U.S. government as an analyst at the CIA after graduating with her master's degree.[9] After leaving Iran she joined the diplomatic corps and assisted USAID in Islamabad as an economics analyst. In 1978, Raphel returned to the United States and joined the State Department.[7] She would take on a range of assignments for the next decade, including posts in London, until she was appointed as Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa in 1988. In 1991, she took the assignment of Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India.[8]

Assistant Secretary of State

In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Raphel as the first Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs within the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, a newly created position within the State Department focused on a growing array of problems in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, including democratic stability, nuclear proliferation, energy access, Islamist and Taliban extremism, poverty and women's rights issues.[2][10]

At the time, Pakistan had not tested its nuclear capabilities, opting for a policy of nuclear opacity.[11]: 137  India's nuclear program was at the time also under the same undeclared status, which ended in 1998 with the Pokhran-II tests.[12] Tensions between Pakistan and India over the unresolved dispute in Kashmir were threatening war between the two nations. Pakistan's armed forces and intelligence services were using Afghanistan's turmoil to create "strategic depth" by fostering alliances with the Taliban.[13] Meanwhile, democracy's experiment in Pakistan was witnessing a revolving door of army-induced change between the governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.[14]: 43 

India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir

At the State Department, Raphel tried to reduce tensions between India and Pakistan by engaging both countries in a negotiated solution to their Kashmir dispute.[15] Kashmir was raised on the agenda in Bhutto's first state visit to Washington in April 1995. It would remain a key topic of regional and bilateral discussions with both India and Pakistan throughout Clinton's two terms in office. She left the State Department's South Asia section in late June 1997.[2]

Work with Taliban during the Afghan Civil War (1992–1996)

Robin Raphel delivers aid in Peshawar

During her tenure at the State Department, Raphel worked to support US government policy of engagement and collaboration with the Taliban.[15][16] She was one of the first senior American officials to meet personally with Taliban.[17]

One of the channels for U.S.-Taliban cooperation that she prioritized was through energy. U.S. energy policies in the mid-1990s sought to develop alternative supply routes to counter increasing tensions in the Middle East. The Clinton administration supported oil and gas pipelines to transport Turkmenistan's energy reserves through Afghanistan to an exit at Pakistan's Indian Ocean seaport of Gwadar.[18]: 165  Unocal, an American company that was one of the many international oil companies seeking the rights to build this pipeline, entered into negotiations with Taliban, to secure protection for the pipeline.[18]: 166 [19]

Raphel spoke in favor of the pipeline project on trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan in April and August 1996. Her meeting with Taliban leaders in 1996 to advocate for a pipeline project earned her the sobriquet "Lady Taliban" in the Indian press.[20] After Raphel's successor Karl Inderfurth took over, the pipeline deal collapsed, however.[18]: 171–174 

Raphel took part in the State Department's establishment of diplomatic relations with the Taliban shortly after its takeover of Kabul in 1996.[21]: 300 [22]

Advocacy for Pakistan

Raphel entered her State Department assignment at a time when U.S.-Pakistan relations were strained. Sanctions imposed by George H. W. Bush over concerns about Pakistan's burgeoning nuclear program under the Pressler Amendment banned all military ties, supply of military hardware and jet fighters, and cut off political relations with Islamabad.[23] Bhutto sought rapprochement with the Clinton White House, visiting the United States in April 1995.[24] Bhutto, working with Pakistan's envoy to Washington at the time, Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, sought Congressional support for an exception to the Pressler Amendment that would allow Pakistan to take delivery of military equipment that it had already paid for.[25] This exception to Pressler (known as the Brown Amendment) was strongly supported by Raphel and by other Clinton administration officials. It was put into effect in November 1995, permitting the one-time transfer to Pakistan of $368M of equipment that had been blocked by the Pressler Amendment.[26]: 78 

Criticism from India

Raphel became unpopular with Indian media in 1993,[27] after publicly describing Kashmir as a "disputed territory." India's position is that Jammu and Kashmir, having been ceded to India in 1947 by their maharajah, are an integral part of India's territory. Raphel's advocacy for negotiation between India and Pakistan was perceived as an attack on India's territorial integrity.[27]

Also in the 1990s, Indian officials who had tapped Raphel's phone learned that she had favored a UN resolution condemning India's actions in Kashmir, but was overruled by 'higher-ups.'[28]

Raphel's decades of work with Pakistan led Indian media to consider her a "brazenly pro-Pakistan partisan in Washington."[29] According to Richard Leiby, writing about the 1993 incident in 2014 after the FBI investigation of Raphel became public knowledge:[30]

To the fury of India, she suggested Pakistan still had valid claims to the disputed territory of Kashmir, saying the U.S. did not believe Kashmir "is forever more an integral part of India." Even now, Indian media berate Raphel and delight in her current difficulties.

Ambassador to Tunisia

In November 1997, Robin Raphel was appointed as United States Ambassador to Tunisia.[2] Tunisia was a frequent partner for Mediterranean military exercises with U.S. naval squadrons and marine battalions, allowing more exercises in its waters than any other country in North Africa. When Raphel was ambassador, Stuart Eizenstat, the Undersecretary of State for Economics, Business and Agriculture, proposed a new initiative to liberalize trade further with Tunisia. The Eizenstat Initiative, as it came to be known informally, implemented lower tariffs on industrial and manufacturing sector goods to enable Tunisia to become a supplier for goods throughout Arab and African states.[31] President Zine El Abidine visited the Clinton White House in 1999.[31]

During her tenure, First Lady Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton visited the country to support Tunisia's improving record in women's rights. Raphel witnessed the rise in political power of Tunisia's opposition as Abidine's administration reserved 20 percent of Parliament's seats for opposition candidates for the first time since he came to power.[31] She served her full term and left in August 2000.[2] Raphel was Senior Vice President at the National Defense University in Washington from 2000 until 2003. Raphel retired from service in 2005.

Post-retirement lobbyist

In 2005, soon after her retirement, Raphel began working for Cassidy & Associates, a Washington-based lobbying firm, where she headed the global affairs and trade group.[32] Shortly after hiring Raphel as a senior vice president, Cassidy signed a $1.2 million contract to lobby for the government of Pakistan. Raphel was assigned to lead the contract.[33] One month later, however, Cassidy canceled the Pakistan lobbying contract after Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf declared emergency rule.[34][32][35]

Raphel continued her role at Cassidy, lobbying for other international clients who included Bangladeshi politician Anwar Hossain Manju and the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, according The Hill.[34] On July 14, 2009, Cassidy signed a new one-year contract with the Pakistani Embassy, to "engage in efforts to improve Pakistan-U.S. relations and promote the development of U.S. policy beneficial to Pakistan and its interests."[34]

AfPak diplomacy

Robin Raphel (far left) with Richard Holbrooke, Ambassador Anne Patterson, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani in Pakistan, 2009

In 2009, Robin Raphel joined the Afghanistan-Pakistan task force known as AfPak, joining the late Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Special Representative for the region.[36] Her focus was to allocate U.S. resources committed under the proposed Kerry-Lugar Bill. That legislation was enacted in late 2009, tripling civilian U.S. aid to Pakistan to approximately $1.5 billion annually.[37]

Raphel's responsibilities included oversight of spending for law enforcement, improvements in Pakistan's judicial system and education programs to raise the country's literacy standards. She worked with USAID in a number of Pakistan's border areas in particular to distribute non-military assistance.[38][39]

Recognition by Government Of Pakistan

In 2023, she was awarded Hilal-e-Pakistan,Pakistan's second-highest civil award, which recognizes "meritorious contribution to the national interests of Pakistan."[40]

FBI Investigation

In February 2013,[41] the FBI began investigating Raphel, based on an intercepted conversation of a Pakistani official that raised suspicions Raphel might have provided secrets to the Pakistani government.[30][29]

After obtaining warrants, investigators began to monitor Raphel's private conversations and Skype, and later (in January 2014) did a "sneak and peek" search of her home when she was away. During that search, they discovered some 20-year-old classified files in a file cabinet.[41]

Raphel first learned of the investigation nearly two years after it began, on Oct. 21, 2014, when she encountered FBI agents searching her home.[41] The State Department, based on information they received from the FBI, placed Raphel on administrative leave and withdrew her security clearance. Her contract with the State Department was allowed to expire on November 2, 2014.[42][30][43][41]

By the spring of 2015, the Justice Department notified Raphel's attorney that she was no longer suspected of espionage.[41] The NYT in October, 2015, reported, "officials now say the spying investigation has all but fizzled, leaving the Justice Department to decide whether to prosecute Ms. Raphel for the far less serious charge of keeping classified information in her home."[44]

The FBI, having found no evidence that Raphel was spying or that she had illegally shared classified information, repeatedly pressed Raphel, as the price of ending their investigation, to plead guilty to mishandling classified information: the 20-year-old files found in her basement.[45] Raphel refused the plea deals.[41][44][46] In March 2016, the Justice Department formally closed the investigation, declining to file any charges against Raphel.[47]

Personal life

In 1972, Raphel married Arnold Lewis Raphel, later Ambassador to Pakistan, in Tehran. They divorced ten years later.[1] Her subsequent marriage to Leonard A. Ashton (1990-?) also ended in divorce. She has two daughters: Alexandra and Anna.[1] She is fluent in French and Urdu.[48]

References

  1. 1 2 3 The Last Diplomat By Adam Entous and Devlin Barrett Wall Street Journal Retrieved 03 December 2016
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Office of the Historian-Robin Lynn Raphel". U.S. State Department. Retrieved 12 April 2014.
  3. ↑ Mathieu, Stephanie (16 November 2006). "Home Grown: Native travels globe as diplomat". The Daily News. Longview Daily News. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
  4. 1 2 "Congressional Record, Volume 143 Issue 129 (Wednesday, September 24, 1997)". Congressional Record. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
  5. ↑ "Karen Johnson Freeze Obituary: View Karen Freeze's Obituary by The Seattle Times". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
  6. ↑ "State Department Archived Biographies -- Robin Lynn Raphel". U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
  7. 1 2 "Robin Raphel: facts and figures". Soylent Communications. Retrieved 12 April 2014.
  8. 1 2 "U.S. State Department Biography of Robin Raphel". U.S. State Department. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 12 April 2014.
  9. ↑ Gearan, Anne; Goldman, Adam (7 November 2014). "U.S. diplomat and longtime Pakistan expert is under federal investigation". The Washington Post. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
  10. ↑ "Departments — Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs". AllGov. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  11. ↑ Chakma, Bhumitra (2009). Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons. Routledge. p. 137, Footnote 6. ISBN 9780415590327.
  12. ↑ Farley, Robert (January 3, 2015). "India's Mighty Nuclear-Weapons Program: Aimed at China and Pakistan?". The National Interest. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  13. ↑ Siddiqi, Shibil (24 March 2010). "'Strategic depth' at heart of Taliban arrests". Asia Times. Archived from the original on 25 March 2010. Retrieved 14 April 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  14. ↑ Vajpeyi, Dhirendra K. (2013). Civil–Military Relationships in Developing Countries. Rowman & Littlefield, Lexington Books Division. p. 43. ISBN 9780739182802.
  15. 1 2 "Statement of Robin Raphel, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs". U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 7 March 1995. Retrieved 12 April 2014. The Kashmir dispute polarizes the relationship between the two nations. We are continuing efforts to persuade them to begin a serious attempt to resolve this dispute. This must involve sustained, direct discussion between senior Indian and Pakistani officials...We [the US] have no preferred outcome. But we recognize that a resolution is long overdue and essential for the long term stability of the region as a whole.
  16. ↑ Haniffa, Aziz (20 December 1996). "Robin Raphel Urges India To Back Talks With Taliban". India Abroad. Archived from the original on 11 June 2014. Retrieved 12 April 2014.
  17. ↑ Sanchez, Raf (7 November 2014). "FBI searches home of former envoy labelled 'Lady Taliban'". Telegraph. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
  18. 1 2 3 Rashid, Ahmed (2002). Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia. I.B. Tauris. pp. 165–166. ISBN 1860648304.
  19. ↑ "Taliban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline". BBC News. 4 December 1997. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  20. ↑ Porter, Tom (21 November 2014). "FBI Investigates US Diplomat Dubbed 'Lady Taliban' over Secrets Leak". International Business Times. Retrieved 2 September 2019. In 1996 she met senior Taliban commanders and argued for the construction of an oil pipeline through Taliban country, earning her the sobriquet Lady Taliban in the Indian press.
  21. ↑ Coll, Steve (2004). Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet invasion to September 10, 2001. Penguin Books. p. 300. ISBN 1594200076. Robin Raphel and others at the State Department and the White House believed that for American oil companies, too, the Taliban could be an important part of a new Afghan solution.
  22. ↑ Swami, Praveen (18 January 2012). "Lead West's romancing of the Taliban". The Hindu. Retrieved 2 September 2019. In April 1996, Robin Raphel — then Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, and now President Barack Obama's ambassador for non-military aid to Pakistan, visited Kabul to lobby for the project. Later that year, she was again in Kabul, this time calling on the international community to 'engage the Taliban.'
  23. ↑ "Context of 'October 1990: US Imposes Sanctions on Pakistan'". History Commons. 1990–1993. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  24. ↑ Kennedy, Tim (June 1995). "Bhutto visit to Washington success in every way but one". Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. pp. 15, 90. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  25. ↑ Ali, M.M. (December 1995). "Brown Amendment prepares way for arms delivery to Pakistan". Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. pp. 38, 119. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  26. ↑ Hersman, Rebecca K. C. (2000). Friends and Foes: How Congress and the President Really Make Foreign Policy. Brookings Institution Press. p. 78. ISBN 0815735650. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
  27. 1 2 Dahlberg, John-Thor (15 March 1994). "U.S.-India Relations Turn Sour: Both are democracies with values in common. U.S. investment pours in. So what's wrong?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 12 April 2014. Kashmir joined India 47 years ago because of a maharaja's wish. When Raphel suggested that might not be enough to grant India perpetual title, Indian correspondents treated her off-the-record comment as tantamount to a U.S. statement putting India's territorial wholeness in doubt.
  28. ↑ Ray, Ashis (17 September 2012). "RAW tapped senior US official's phone, 'heard' US-Pak move on J&K". The Times of India. Retrieved 14 April 2014. India soon came to know of the frustration of Raphel — we came to hear from a phone intercept,' says Srinivasan. She informed her colleague, the US ambassador, that she had pressed for an affirmative vote for the Pakistan resolution, but had been blocked by the 'higher-ups'.
  29. 1 2 Apuzzo, Matt; Schmidt, Michael S.; Mazzetti, Mark (November 20, 2014). "Eavesdropping on Pakistani Official Led to Inquiry Into Former U.S. Diplomat". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 December 2017. Her longstanding relations with Pakistan's government have also made her an object of scorn in India, the bitter rival of Pakistan...The Indian news media has aggressively covered the espionage case in recent weeks, with The Times of India describing Ms. Raphel as a 'brazenly pro-Pakistan partisan in Washington'
  30. 1 2 3 Leiby, Richard (16 December 2014). "Who is Robin Raphel, the State Department veteran caught up in Pakistan intrigue?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 17 July 2020. After postings in South Africa and New Delhi, Robin Raphel's career accelerated sharply: In 1993, Clinton plucked her from a relatively low position as political counselor in New Delhi and appointed her to the newly created post of assistant secretary for South Asia...Her candid style didn't always play well. To the fury of India, she suggested Pakistan still had valid claims to the disputed territory of Kashmir, saying the U.S. did not believe Kashmir 'is forever more an integral part of India.' Even now, Indian media berate Raphel and delight in her current difficulties.
  31. 1 2 3 Hanley, Delinda C. (April–May 1999). "US Ambassador Robin Raphel gives update on Tunisia". Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, p.20-21. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
  32. 1 2 Wingfield, Brian (Aug 19, 2008). "At The Corner of Islamabad And K". Forbes. Retrieved July 19, 2020. In October 2007, Cassidy & Associates, and its affiliated company Weber Shandwick, inked a hefty $100,000 a month contract with the Pakistani embassy in Washington. Early the following month, Cassidy canceled the deal after Musharraf declared emergency rule.
  33. ↑ Bogardus, Kevin (25 October 2007). "Pakistan builds up D.C. presence with Cassidy contract". The Hill. Retrieved 2 September 2019. Raphel, a new high-profile hire at the firm who is familiar with the region, will lead the contract. Formerly the deputy inspector general in the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction and assistant secretary of state for South Asian Affairs, Raphel was a State Department official detailed to the U.S. Agency for International Development in Pakistan early in her career.
  34. 1 2 3 Bogardus, Kevin (August 5, 2009). "New State hire may exploit a loophole in lobbyist ban". The Hill. Retrieved July 19, 2020. At Cassidy, Raphel represented several clients and lobbied the State Department until the end of 2008, according to lobbying disclosure records. Raphel was also a registered foreign agent for Pakistan's embassy here in the United States for about a month in the fall of 2007 before Cassidy canceled the contract in the wake of protests against the country's then-president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
  35. ↑ McKenna, Ted (November 14, 2007). "Cassidy terminates deal with Pakistan". PR Week. Retrieved July 19, 2020. A recent $1.2-million, one-year contract between Cassidy & Associates and the embassy of Pakistan was abruptly terminated following the recent declaration of martial law in the country
  36. ↑ Rood, Justin (August 10, 2009). "Despite Obama's Promises, Revolving Door Still Turning". ABC News. Retrieved July 19, 2020. Robin Raphel, a former longtime diplomatic official who left the State Department in 2005, has been rehired to coordinate non-military aid to the Republic of Pakistan. To take the job, Raphel had to leave her job at the lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates, where for a month she was part of a team representing Pakistan.
  37. ↑ Waraich, Omar (8 October 2009). "How a U.S. Aid Package to Pakistan Could Threaten Zardari". Time. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
  38. ↑ "Pakistan: The Lost Generation : Extended Interview: Robin Raphel". PBS. February 23, 2010. Retrieved 14 February 2015.
  39. ↑ Khan, Afnan (July 18, 2011). "US helping Pakistan offset energy crisis". Daily Times. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  40. ↑ "President confers Pakistan civil awards on 135 individuals". Express Tribune. March 23, 2023. Retrieved March 25, 2023. The Hilal-i-Pakistan award was given to Ambassador (retd) Robin Lynn Raphel for her services to Pakistan.
  41. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Entous, Adam; Barrett, Devlin (2 December 2016). "The Last Diplomat". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 10 October 2019. In the spring of 2015, a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office handling the Raphel case notified Amy Jeffress, one of Raphel's attorneys, that the Justice Department was no longer investigating her client for espionage. That was the good news. Yet the FBI still wanted her to be prosecuted for mishandling classified information—a charge that could result in jail time...The most sensitive document the FBI recovered was 20 years old, and if she were charged, it could well have been routinely declassified while she awaited trial.
  42. ↑ "U.S. diplomat and longtime Pakistan expert is under federal investigation". The Washington Post. Retrieved 22 June 2015.
  43. ↑ Mazzetti, Mark; Apuzzo, Matt (7 November 2014). "F.B.I. Is Investigating Retired U.S. Diplomat, a Pakistan Expert, Officials Say". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
  44. 1 2 Mazzetti, Mark; Apuzzo, Matt; Schmidt, Michael S (October 10, 2015). "Spying Case Against U.S. Envoy Is Falling Apart, and Following a Pattern". NYT. Retrieved July 18, 2020. Last fall, federal agents raided the home and office of Robin L. Raphel in search of proof that she, a seasoned member of America's diplomatic corps, was spying for Pakistan. But officials now say the spying investigation has all but fizzled, leaving the Justice Department to decide whether to prosecute Ms. Raphel for the far less serious charge of keeping classified information in her home.
  45. ↑ Boot, Max (December 6, 2016). "Risking Diplomacy". Commentary Magazine. Retrieved July 18, 2020. The most damning piece of evidence that the FBI found was some 20-year-old files that contained once-classified information in Raphel's home–files that she had taken with her when she retired, as do many U.S. government officials. Even after it became obvious that Raphel couldn't be charged with espionage, the FBI hoped to charge her with mishandling classified information–the same rap that nailed General David Petraeus. But the Justice Department, mercifully, would not play along and all investigations were finally ended earlier this year.
  46. ↑ Cushing, Tim (October 21, 2015). "DOJ On The Verge Of Dropping Third Straight Espionage Prosecution". Tech Dirt. Retrieved July 20, 2020. For her part, Raphael has rejected the plea deals offered by the DOJ, claiming she's actually innocent. At most, she took home documents she shouldn't have. The DOJ seems hesitant to move forward, although the New York Times quotes anonymous prosecutors who would like to see her charged with a felony under the Espionage Act -- charges that could result in years of prison time.
  47. ↑ Apuzzo, Matt (March 21, 2016). "U.S. Ends Spying Case Against Former Envoy". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 December 2017. The inquiry began when American investigators intercepted a conversation in which a Pakistani official suggested that his government was receiving American secrets from Ms. Raphel, a conversation that led to months of secret surveillance. The espionage case soon began to fizzle, however, leaving prosecutors to focus on the far less serious charge of keeping classified information in her home. Ms. Raphel, in negotiations with the government, rejected plea deals and has been insistent that she face no charges.
  48. ↑ "U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia Biography/Archives". U.S. State Department. Retrieved 14 April 2014.
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