“We’re going to see problems in multiple (countries) because of that money given to them”, said Kirk.
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Mark Kirk slammed President Barack Obama and his administration Saturday for the delivery of a $400 million payment to Iran in exchange for the release of four Americans who were held in Tehran.
The comments came in a sit-down last week with the editorial board of The State Journal-Register, according to the IL paper’s political writer.
Leaders have condemned the White House for its shady deal with Iran. Sen.
By “giving clean packs of money” to Iran, the administration is enabling a “state sponsor of terror”, Kirk added.
One of the president’s most vocal critics over the supposed Iran ransom, however, is Republican Sen.
Although the two events were unrelated – the $400m payment was made to settle a decades-old account having to do with a failed arms deal between the USA and pre-revolutionary Iran – Republicans have decried it as a “ransom” amid recent reports detailing the transfer.
The president has insisted the cash was to settle a longstanding dispute over a failed weapons deal in the 1970s, but the State Department admitted last week the $400 million cash payment was made only after the American hostages were released. The Chicago Tribune noted that Kirk slammed Obama after the Iran nuke deal was cemented a year ago, saying Obama wants “to get nukes to Iran” and used the president’s full name to take a shot at him.
“We, of course, sought to retain maximum leverage until after American citizens were released, and that was our top priority”, he said.
Kirk is also in the middle of a re-election bid for his Senate seat. Kirk believes the Administration’s actions, which Tammy Duckworth has supported, were reckless in the extreme.
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Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, used similar words to Kirk’s in characterizing the payment to Iran.
