{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://web.archive.org/web/20140221022948/http://www.billnelson.senate.gov/news/details.cfm?id=349233&", "Nelson: I will go to Iran if it will help bring Bob \r\nLevinson home", "2013-12-17", "2013", "2013-12", "Democrat", "House", "FL", "Bill Nelson", "N000032", "web.archive.org", null, null, "legacy", "Nelson: I will go to Iran if it will help bring Bob \nLevinson home                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tDecember 17, 2013\n\t\t\t\t\n                \n\t\t\t\t  \t\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0WASHINGTON, D.C. - \u00a0A U.S. lawmaker is offering to travel to Iran and meet with top Iranian officials over the fate of a missing American. \u00a0Such a trip would be the first for a member of Congress in at least three decades.    \t\u00a0    \tU.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) made the offer through Tehran\u2019s ambassador to the United Nations in a telephone call with him on Sunday. \u00a0    \t\u00a0    \tNelson told Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee that he would be willing to go to Iran in the case of Bob Levinson, the retired FBI agent and Florida resident, who disappeared on Kish Island off the coast of Iran in March 2007.    \t\u00a0    \tThe senator told the ambassador that he would go if it would help lead to Levinson\u2019s safe return home. \u00a0    \t\u00a0    \tIn response, the ambassador told Nelson that he would pass his comments along to the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.\u00a0    \t\u00a0    \t\u201cI am willing to go to Iran if in any way that it would secure his release,\u201d Nelson said today in a speech on the Senate floor. \u201cIf the Iranian authorities took him, somebody in the government of Iran knows of his whereabouts.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0    \t\u00a0    \tThis week, the last man to allegedly see Levinson before he disappeared said he believes it was Iranian security officials who took him. \u00a0 \u00a0    \t\u00a0    \tSeveral major news organizations disclosed late last week that Levinson had ties to the CIA. \u00a0His family last received proof that he was alive in 2011. \u00a0    \t\u00a0    \tLevinson\u2019s wife, Christine, traveled to Kish Island in Dec. 2007 to retrace Bob\u2019s steps and met with officials from Iran who pledged to help. \u00a0    \t\u00a0    \tNelson first got involved in the case when Levinson\u2019s family contacted his office and asked for his help. \u00a0    \t\u00a0    \tThe senator is well-known for his advocacy in individual cases. \u00a0    \t\u00a0    \tFor example, Nelson was credited with helping to get Jon Hammar, a 27-year-old former Marine from Florida, released from a prison in Matamoros, Mexico after he had been detained there for months without a hearing on a disputed weapons charge. \u00a0\u00a0    \t\u00a0    \tAnd recently, he was instrumental in getting criminal charges dropped against two elderly American tourists who were briefly detained in the Turks and Caicos after authorities at the airport there claimed in separate incidents they found a single bullet in their luggage.\u00a0    \t\u00a0   ###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://web.archive.org/web/20140221022948/http://www.billnelson.senate.gov/news/details.cfm?id=349233&"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6442809719592333, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}