Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), would prohibit the USA government from paying ransom to Iran; mandate sanctions against Iranian officials who detain Americans; and require Iran to repay the $1.7 billion paid earlier this year.
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Sanctions impair Tehran’s ability to receive payments using the global banking system. That’s how much the Obama administration now admits it sent Iran in cash earlier this year. This was ostensibly done to ensure that the three American hostages in question were released on that self same day.
The administration had claimed the events were separate, but the administration recently acknowledged the cash was used as leverage until the Americans were allowed to leave Iran.
“By Washington standards, $1.7 billion may pale in comparison to larger spending items, but I imagine this is not how taxpayers in Goose Creek and Beaufort thought their tax dollars would be spent”, Sanford said in a statement. The money was flown in a plane to Iran on wooden pallets stacked with various currencies to resolve a dispute between the two countries stemming from a failed arms deal made before the Islamic Revolution in 1979 that toppled the Shah. The revelation comes amid renewed controversy over the alleged secret transaction, despite President Barack Obama clarifying that the payment was not some “nefarious deal”. “But those families know that we have a policy that we don’t pay ransom”. And on top of that it put more American lives at risk.
The Treasury Department confirmed late Tuesday that the subsequent payments were also made in cash. “This has set a bad precedent and has put a price on American lives all around the globe”.
“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”, Rubio said.
We need – to be specific – the information Congress has been requesting for more than seven months. But that happened because Iran and the U.S. Have no direct banking relationship.
The bill introduced by congressional Republicans on Tuesday would block the Treasury Department from making any payments to Iran until Tehran returns the $1.7 billion to the us and pays the American terrorism victims. It denied that the payment constituted “ransom”, as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and other powerful Republicans have alleged.
The Obama administration said it made a decision to cover the debt because it expected to lose arbitration in The Hague and be ordered to pay as much as $10 billion due to accumulated interest.
Sen. John Cornyn has signed on as a co-sponsor to similar legislation in the Senate from Sen.
“But you know, we didn’t have to get our guys back”, Kirk replied.
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Paul Ahern, the assistant general counsel for enforcement and intelligence at the Treasury Department, said the $400 million came from a fund called the Foreign Military Sales Trust Fund. “Kansans expect and demand better from their government”. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who sponsored the bill along with Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan. “With bags of untraceable hard currency, Iran can more easily support its allies or illicitly procure missile and nuclear parts”.
