The president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), the controversial group promoting closer ties with Iran, admitted in an email to supporters Wednesday that he wants to prevent a Congressional vote on the nuclear deal with Iran from occurring.

An alert written by NIAC founder and president Trita Parsi celebrated securing the 34th Democratic Senate vote for the nuclear deal, which would prevent Congress from overriding President Barack Obama’s veto of their disapproval. With some Senators still on the fence, Parsi urged his followers to lobby the Senate to reach 41 “yes” votes, which would allow deal supporters to filibuster to prevent a vote from going forward at all.

We need 41 votes in the Senate to win the vote outright, preventing the President from having to resort to a veto. A deal protected merely by the President’s veto pen faces an uphill battle in future administrations. A different president can use the same pen to kill the deal.

We must be ready to double down our efforts on the remaining 7 Senators to ensure we seal this deal without a veto.

The legislation mandating the vote on the deal, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, passed both houses of Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support, including by 98-1 in the Senate. It was later signed into law by President Barack Obama. A number of Democrats, even those who support the deal, are on record favoring a vote in the Senate. In contrast, Iranian deputy foreign minister Hamid Baidinejad expressed his support for the filibuster.

Earlier this year, the Federal Court of Appeals ruled that NIAC “flouted multiple court orders,” ordering it to pay nearly $200,000 in court costs to Hassan Daioleslam, a blogger it had sued. NIAC accused Daioleslam of defamation for claiming that NIAC acted as a lobby for Iran, but the court found that Parsi’s work was “not inconsistent with the idea that he was first and foremost an advocate for the regime.”

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