New information today about the Obama Administration’s deal with Iran that freed four American prisoners back in January. Officials denied those were linked, but then the WSJ revealed the $400 million was sent as cash stacked on “wooden pallets… on an unmarked cargo plane” and the transfer was a “tightly scripted exchange specifically timed” to the hostage release [a][b].
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That was the same day Tehran agreed to release four American prisoners.
In addition to hearings, Republicans in Congress are moving forward legislatively to prevent further “ransom” payments to Iran.
“Congress has now ceded so much of its fiscal control to the executive branch”, said Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, in an opening statement. White House officials have also said the total payment was linked to a decades-old legal dispute between the two countries over a failed weapons deal, and the prisoner release was a completely separate negotiation.
Officials did say that the two transactions were negotiated separately over a period of years. The deal that involved hundreds of millions of dollars and that critics insist amounted to the president paying ransom.
“The Treasury Department would be blocked from making payments to Iran out of its Judgement Fund until Tehran complies with the bill”, The Hill reported. Ben Cardin, D-Md., ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Tuesday when asked if cash payments were a concern. “But those families know that we have a policy that we don’t pay ransom”.
The nation’s progress in getting more people covered by health insurance slowed significantly this year, the government confirmed Wednesday in a report that tempers a historic achievement of the Obama. Well, tonight here, new details of how and why that giant sum of money was delivered to Iran. “We shouldn’t put a price on the heads of Americans, in this case it was $400 million”.
“President Obama’s disastrous nuclear deal with Iran was sweetened with an illicit ransom payment and billions of dollars for the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism”, said Sen.
“The Obama Administration’s latest capitulation to the world’s largest state sponsor of terror is extremely unsafe”, said Senator Capito.
The State Department’s response also noted that the United States “has a significant counterclaim against Iran arising out of the [Foreign Military Sales] program” seeking “substantial damages”.
With Congress returning to Washington after a summer break, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., introduced legislation created to stop similar cash payments to foreign countries, censure the Obama administration and require Congress to be given a warning about such payments in the future. Republicans are calling it ransom. John Cornyn (R., Texas), Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.), John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), and Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.Va.).
The Treasury spokeswoman argued that the $1.7 billion sum was based on a 37-year-old arbitration claim between the US and Iran, however, and the larger sum of $1.3 billion was estimated interest on Iranian cash that the USA has held since the 1970s.
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We now don’t know whether, after such offsets, the United States owed Iran anything at all. He said his lawyers assessed that “there was significant litigation risk” regarding Iran’s claim. “Kansans expect and demand better from their government”. As former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy pointed out at National Review last month, they date back to Iran’s seizure of hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, its support for “Hezbollah’s killing sprees”, and, most pertinently, Bill Clinton’s 1995 invocation of “federal laws that deal with national emergencies caused by foreign aggression”, by which he meant Iran’s support for worldwide terrorism.
