A Republican lawmaker says as Washington is inching closer to the possibility of “another failed nuclear deal with Iran”, Special Envoy Robert Malley is hiding from Congress.

New York Representative Claudia Tenney said on Thursday that “with all troubling news coming to light” about the agreement with Iran, Malley has yet to appear before Congress for a public hearing to provide the American people with an update on the negotiations.

In an opinion piece published in Newsweek earlier in the day, she said since his appointment on January 28, 2021, “Malley has refused to testify publicly before Congress, unlike his predecessor, Brian Hook, who testified on several occasions”.

She said Malley is refusing to testify because of revelations about the Vienna talks over the last several weeks.

Tenney said that “as Russia wages an unprovoked and murderous war in Ukraine, President Biden is bizarrely fixated on securing Russian cooperation to finalize a nuclear deal with Iran”.

Criticizing the administration for not being transparent, the lawmaker said Biden does not want people to know that Tehran could receive “as much as $90 billion” sanctions relief in return for minimal concessions and will remove sanctions on “some of Iran's worst human rights abusers and terrorists” as well as on the Revolutionary Guard.

She added that the administration “plans to surrender nearly $7 billion in ransom for the release of four wrongfully detained American hostages in Iran” and the “biggest secret is that it has no plans at all to involve Congress in the negotiating process”.