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 Wall Street Journal fires Jay Solomon over involvement with arms dealer 
 
 The Wall Street Journal has fired chief foreign affairs correspondent Jay Solomon for what the paper called a “breach” and ethical lapses over his involvement with an Iranian-born arms dealer. 
 
 Washington Bureau Chief Paul Beckett made the announcement to staff during a hastily called meeting on Wednesday after meeting with senior editors in New York the day before. Beckett did not elaborate on Solomon’s situation, only to say that an upcoming Associated Press investigation would have more details. Beckett took no questions and asked any staffers who knew anything about the situation to come forward, according to multiple sources. 
 
 Shortly after the announcement, the Associated Press on Wednesday afternoon published an article that said Solomon was offered a 10 percent stake in a company called Denx LLC by "Farhad Azima, an Iranian-born aviation magnate who has ferried weapons for the CIA.” Azima, the article said, was also one of Solomon's sources for years. Solomon’s involvement was unearthed as part of an AP investigation into Azima, in which the AP obtained a "collection of tens of thousands of emails his lawyers say was stolen by hackers,” which included conversations between Azima and Solomon. 
 
 According to the AP, Solomon spent more than a year discussing the business effort with Azima, though it's not clear from those messages that Solomon took any concrete steps to make the ideas a reality. The hacked messages included one in which Solomon said in October 2014, “Our business opportunities are so promising." 
 
 In another email from April 2015, Azima wrote to Solomon about a $725 million proposal contract with the United Arab Emirates that would "allow planes to spy on activity inside nearby Iran." According to the emails, Solomon was expected to "ferry the proposal" to government representatives from the UAE at a lunch the next day. 
 
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 “We all wish best of luck to Jay on his first defense sale,” Azima wrote in an email also sent to Solomon, according to the AP. 
 
 In a statement, the Journal said Solomon "forfeited" the newspaper's trust. 
 
 “We are dismayed by the actions and poor judgment of Jay Solomon,” the Journal said in a statement. "The allegations raised by this reporting are serious. While our own investigation continues, we have concluded that Mr. Solomon violated his ethical obligations as a reporter, as well as our standards. He has not been forthcoming with us about his actions or his reporting practices and he has forfeited our trust. Mr. Solomon is no longer employed by The Wall Street Journal." 
 
 Solomon, a veteran correspondent who published a book last year about Iran and the “spy games, bank battles and secret deals that reshaped the Middle East,” did not respond to emails seeking comment. But in a statement to the AP, he said he "clearly made mistakes in my reporting and entered into a world I didn’t understand.” 
 
 “I never entered into any business with Farhad Azima, nor did I ever intend to. But I understand why the emails and the conversations I had with Mr. Azima may look like I was involved in some seriously troubling activities. I apologize to my bosses and colleagues at the Journal, who were nothing but great to me," Solomon said. 
 
 According to the AP, Solomon did not mention Azima by name in any of his articles over the past four years, and Azima is not listed in the index of Solomon's 2016 book. But on Twitter, Solomon was Azima's first Twitter follower and Azima's first tweet was to Solomon in 2014. 
 
 "Hi @WSJSolomon," Azima wrote. "@azimausa welcome to Twitter, your excellency!" Solomon wrote in return. 
 
 Hadas Gold is a reporter at Politico. ||||| Jay Solomon, a veteran national security reporter — seen here being interviewed on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” in 2014 — was fired by the Wall Street Journal after a report alleging that he had discussed business deals with a source. (C-SPAN via Associated Press) 
 
 At 3:08 pm on Wednesday, the Washington bureau of the Wall Street Journal received a cryptic email from their chief, Paul Beckett. 
 
 “Short-Notice staff Meeting at 3:15,” read the subject. The team of 40 was told to gather at their usual spot. “We won’t need chairs,” he added. “It will be short.” 
 
 Soon enough, Beckett delivered to the jittery group the news many had half-anticipated: Ace national security reporter Jay Solomon, whose desk had earlier that day been cleared off, had been fired. But as for the reason, Beckett said they’d have to read a forthcoming report from the Associated Press. 
 
 Minutes later, that story hit the bureau like a bombshell: Solomon had been fired, the AP reported, after “evidence emerged of his involvement in prospective commercial deals — including one involving arms sales to foreign governments — with an international businessman who was one of his key sources.” 
 
 According to the report, Solomon had been offered a 10 percent stake in a new company by an Iranian-born aviation magnate named Farhad Azima. Solomon told the AP he never “entered into any business dealings” with his source and never intended to. The Journal wouldn’t confirm or deny this part of the report but apparently saw enough to let him go. 
 
 Farhad Azima, an Iranian-born aviation mogul whose alleged dealings with Solomon led to the reporter’s firing. (Jill Toyoshiba/The Kansas City Star via AP) 
 
 “We are dismayed by the actions and poor judgment of Jay Solomon,” the Journal said in a statement. “The allegations raised by this reporting are serious. While our own investigation continues, we have concluded that Mr. Solomon violated his ethical obligations as a reporter, as well as our standards. He has not been forthcoming with us about his actions or his reporting practices and he has forfeited our trust. Mr. Solomon is no longer employed by The Wall Street Journal.” 
 
 Solomon is no slouch. His work covering national security and foreign affairs had been submitted by the paper for Pulitzer consideration, according to former and current Journal employees. He’s the author of a book about Iran and is widely considered among the staff to be a favorite of Editor in Chief Gerard Baker, who would often praise him in editors’ meetings. 
 
 Solomon’s two decades at the Journal included stints in Asia and Africa. While in Washington, he had become a well-sourced fixture on the foreign policy social scene. He’s known to have a close working relationship with Yousef al-Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to the United States. 
 
 He had drawn criticism, though, from some colleagues and government officials who perceived his work to show a bias against the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran. In his 2016 book, “The Iran Wars,” Solomon wrote that the deal “rather than calming the world’s most combustible region, risks inflaming it.” 
 
 No one, however, saw him as a potential business partner with his sources. That is, until the Associated Press, in the course of reporting another story, came across emails and text messages between Solomon and Azima that Azima’s lawyers said were stolen by hackers. Over the past three decades, Azima has been tied to the Iran-contra affair, dealt weapons to Persian Gulf and Balkan nations, and worked his ample connections in Washington. 
 
 Hours before the Solomon story broke, the AP reported that Azima, 75, is under investigation on suspicions that he bribed a former UAE official in order to reap profits from a hotel sale in Tbilisi, Georgia. It was in the process of reporting this story that reporters came across his correspondence with Solomon. 
 
 [From AP: ‘Worth killing over’: How a plane mogul dodged U.S. scrutiny] 
 
 In April 2015, the AP reported Wednesday, Azima wrote to Solomon about a possible $725 million contract with the United Arab Emirates, in which he asked the reporter to bring the proposal to a UAE government representative he was lunching with the following day. 
 
 “We all wish best of luck to Jay on his first defense deal,” Azima wrote to Solomon and others in the email. 
 
 And the exchanges went both ways. In one particularly suspect instance from October 2014, Solomon texted Azima: “Our business opportunities are so promising.” 
 
 On Wednesday, Solomon expressed regrets for his actions while at the same time insisting that things weren’t quite as bad as they may look. 
 
 “I clearly made mistakes in my reporting and entered into a world I didn’t understand.” Solomon told the AP on Wednesday. “I never entered into any business with Farhad Azima, nor did I ever intend to. But I understand why the emails and the conversations I had with Mr. Azima may look like I was involved in some seriously troubling activities. I apologize to my bosses and colleagues at the Journal, who were nothing but great to me.” 
 
 Hours after the sudden all-staff meeting, Journal employees were still coming to grips with what this all means. 
 
 “I can’t imagine this will go away quickly,” one of them said. “Someone must be going through all his articles now. It might take a little while to know exactly how bad this is.”
– A Wall Street Journal reporter was fired Wednesday over potential business dealings with an Iranian-born arms dealer. The Washington Post reports Jay Solomon, chief foreign affairs correspondent for the Journal, had received Pulitzer consideration and was well-liked by the paper's editor in chief. His shocking termination springs from an AP investigation into Farhad Azima, who Solomon used as a source for stories. Azima, who has dealt weapons to multiple nations and was tied to the Iran-contra affair, offered Solomon a 10% stake in a company called Denx. While it's unclear if Solomon ever accepted that stake, the AP uncovered 18 months of emails and texts between Solomon and Azima discussing business together. In 2014, Solomon texted Azima: "Our business opportunities are so promising." The following year, Azima wished Solomon luck "on his first defense sale" in regards to delivering a proposal to UAE representatives. Also in 2015, there was talk of Denx being involved in an effort to bring down the government of Kuwait, though Solomon denies any knowledge of that. "Mr. Solomon violated his ethical obligations as a reporter, as well as our standards," Politico quotes a statement from the Journal as saying. The newspaper says it was "dismayed" by Solomon's actions and "poor judgement." Solomon, while denying ever getting into business with Azima, says he understands "why the emails and the conversations I had with Mr. Azima may look like I was involved in some seriously troubling activities."