David Plouffe, a senior White House adviser who was President Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, accepted a $100,000 speaking fee in 2010 from an affiliate of a company doing business with Iran’s government.

A subsidiary of MTN Group, a South Africa-based telecommunications company, paid Plouffe for two speeches he made in Nigeria in December 2010, about a month before he joined the White House staff.

Since Plouffe’s speeches, MTN Group has come under intensified scrutiny from U.S. authorities because of its activities in Iran and Syria, which are under international sanctions intended to limit the countries’ access to sensitive technology. At the time of Plouffe’s speeches, MTN had been in a widely reported partnership for five years with a state-owned Iranian telecommunications firm.

There were no legal or ethical restrictions on Plouffe being paid to speak to the MTN subsidiary as a private citizen. But for a close Obama aide to have accepted payment from a company involved in Iran could prove troublesome for the president as the White House toughens its stance toward the Islamic republic. In recent weeks, Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney has accused the administration of being soft on Iran.

The White House declined to make Plouffe available for an interview. Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman, said Sunday that criticizing Plouffe would be unfair because MTN Group’s role in Iran was not a high-profile issue when he was invited to speak to the affiliate...

White House officials said in an e-mail that Plouffe referred the proposed speech to his lawyer for review before accepting the invitation. The e-mail said Plouffe’s lawyer advised that MTN’s business dealings did not raise any issues “that would weigh against acceptance of the proposed speaking engagement”...

Plouffe has had no role in administration discussions on whether MTN Group or other companies might be sanctioned because of its activities in Iran, the officials said.

MTN executives denied violating any sanctions but acknowledged that they have been in discussions with administration authorities for months.

Paul Norman, a spokesman for MTN Group, said that the company sought Plouffe’s participation “because of his expertise and his knowledge of the U.S. political scene. It was part of a program of such speakers that MTN Nigeria invited to attend their senior management events. It had no connection or relevance to Iran.”

The White House said Plouffe declined to meet privately with MTN executives in Nigeria.

In 2005, MTN Group entered the Iranian market by forming a joint venture, Irancell, with an Iranian government-backed consortium. Headquartered in Johannesburg, MTN Group has rapidly expanded its businesses in Iran, Nigeria and other developing economies.

In 2006, Stuart Levey, then undersecretary of the Treasury and the point man on Iran sanction enforcement in the Bush administration — a job he also held for two years under Obama — told Turkish officials that Irancell was “fully owned” by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to a State Department cable made public by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.

The corps led a crackdown on protesters after the June 2009 presidential election in Iran and has long been accused of playing a central role in the country’s nuclear program. Some of its officers and business interests have been targeted by U.S. and U.N. sanctions intended to curb Iran’s nuclear program dating back to 2006.

Since Plouffe’s speeches, the U.S. government has become increasingly concerned that the Iranian government has used MTN operations or technology to help monitor dissidents. Company representatives and South Africa’s ambassador to the United States have met with senior executive branch officials in efforts to stress the firm’s compliance with U.S. sanctions, according to U.S. officials familiar with the talks who spoke on the condition of anonymity because no decisions have been reached...

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), a leading critic of technology firms operating in Iran, told The Post in a statement late last week that MTN should be “blacklisted” because of evidence that it “provided technology to Iran used to repress the Iranian people.”

On Wednesday, Congress passed new sanctions on Iran with provisions that could apply to technology companies such as MTN. The bill awaits the president’s signature...

With a broad portfolio mixing politics and policy, Plouffe is a key member of Obama’s inner circle, a confidant whose desk is just steps from the Oval Office. There is no evidence that he has been involved in policy discussions about Iran sanctions, though he has spoken publicly about the need to restrain Iran’s nuclear program.

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Editor's Note: Unacceptable on every level. Plouffe must resign and distance himself from the Obama re-election effort. It is unconscionable to have the Obama Administration urging Israel to restrain their military where Iran is concerned when senior members of the Obama Administration are profiting from relations with companies doing business with Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu should demand Plouffe's resignation...immediately.


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