Biden State Department Official With Controversial Past Put on Leave

Robert Malley is a controversial State Department official who was recently put on leave for mishandling classified information. He has ties to Hamas and tried normalizing relations with them.

Malley comes from a family of radical activists. His father was close with Yasser Arafat and Fidel Castro.

Many in the Iranian opposition view Malley as an appeaser of Iran's regime and have started a petition to remove him.

Malley went to school with Secretary Blinken but has controversial Middle East views, believing the Palestinian violence is an "inevitable corollary" of Israeli treatment.

As a member of Obama's team, Malley advocated talking to Hamas and Iran when the US did not engage with those groups. This led to his resignation from Obama's 2008 campaign.