Posted on 08/03/2016 9:03:43 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
CNSNews.com) – Republicans lashed out Tuesday at the Obama administration over a news report claiming it airlifted $400 million in foreign currency to Tehran on the same day the regime released five imprisoned Americans.
On that day in January, the U.S. agreed to settle a 37-year-old Iranian legal claim worth $400 million, plus an additional $1.3 billion in interest. The two developments also coincided with the “implementation day” for the nuclear deal struck between Tehran, the U.S. and five other nations.
The administration has long denied that the $1.7 billion settlement was related to the prisoner releases, or that it amounted to a “ransom.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that the cash, in European and other currencies, was secretly flown to Iran on wooden pallets in an unmarked cargo plane, and that it was a first instalment of the agreed-upon $1.7 billion payout.
Citing U.S. and European officials and congressional staffers who had been briefed later, it said the U.S. had sent the equivalent of $400 million to the Dutch and Swiss central banks, where it was converted and provided in foreign currency, then flown to Iran.
The report quoted State Department spokesman John Kirby as reiterating the administration’s denial of any link between the payment and release of the imprisoned Americans.
The two negotiations, he said, “were completely separate” and were also handled by different teams.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) wondered Tuesday what else the administration has not revealed regarding its dealings with Iran.
“The logistics of this payment – literally delivering a plane full of cash to evade U.S. law – shows yet again the extraordinary lengths the Obama administration will go to accommodate Iran, all while hiding the facts from Congress and the American people,” he said.
“Hundreds of millions in the pockets of a terrorist regime means a more dangerous region, period. And paying ransom only puts more American lives in jeopardy,” Royce said. “We already know the Iran nuclear deal was a historic mistake. It keeps getting worse. What else is the Obama administration hiding?”
On February 3, Royce asked Secretary of State John Kerry in writing for details about the $1.7 billion payment to Iran.
After receiving – a month and a half later – what he characterized as an “incomplete” response from assistant secretary for legislative affairs Julia Frifield, Royce sent Kerry another letter, asking again for details, including “detailed information as to how this $1.7 billion payment was processed and delivered to Iran.”
Royce said Tuesday he has yet to hear back from the State Department in response to his second letter.
(Royce wanted details about exactly how payment was made, in part, because of concerns about Iranian access to the U.S. financial system and ability to conduct business in U.S. dollars. According to the WSJ report, the cash received by Tehran was all in foreign currency.)
Most of Frifield’s letter to Royce last March comprised background on the Iranian legal claim, which arose from weapons supply agreements struck shortly before the fundamentalist clerical regime took over in 1979.
Her three-page letter did not once mention the release of the imprisoned Americans – despite Royce having asked about that at some length.
‘Tough, principled diplomacy’
The Americans released at the same time as the nuclear deal took effect and the payment was made were Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, who had been convicted of espionage; Pastor Saeed Abedini, serving an eight-year term after being convicted of “crimes against national security”; former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, sentenced to death (later overturned) for spying; researcher Matthew Trevithick; and an Iranian-American, Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari.
Kerry at the time strongly denied that the payment and releases were linked.
He told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer the claim payout was “completely separate from what we were doing with respect to the nuclear agreement,” and that the nuclear deal and the prisoner release were “not linked distinctly.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who appeared on Blitzer’s show after Kerry, wondered whether the $1.7 billion payout was “just part of the ransom that we had to pay to get innocent Americans back from Iranian captivity.”
Two days later, the head of Iran’s Basij militia said in a speech that the U.S. had agreed to pay the money to buy freedom for what the semi-official Fars news agency called “its spies held by Iran.”
Fars headlined its report, “Basij Commander: U.S. Bought Freedom of Spies by Releasing $1.7 bln of Iran’s Frozen Assets.”
White House press secretary Josh Earnest, asked at a briefing at the time whether it was “an absolute coincidence that this payment just happened to coincide with the precise moment when the American prisoners were flying to freedom,” replied that implementation of the nuclear deal had “created a series of diplomatic opportunities for the United States that we’ve capitalized on.”
“And we used that opening and we used that deeper diplomatic engagement to secure the release of five American citizens who are being unjustly held inside of Iran,” Earnest said.
“And we used that diplomatic opening to resolve a longstanding financial claim that the Iranians had against the United States.”
Earnest during that press briefing used the adjectives “tough [and] principled” seven times to describe the administration’s diplomacy regarding Iran.
On Tuesday Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), another arch-critic of the administration’s Iran policy, said in a tweet that “[s]ince Obama paid ransom to Iran at least two more Americans [have been] taken hostage.”
Robin Reza Shahini of San Diego, Calif. was detained while visiting his mother in Iran. Baquer Namazi, an 80-year-old Iranian-American citizen was reportedly arrested in Tehran in February.
Still unaccounted-for is the former FBI agent, Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran nine years ago.
btt
When is the impeachment?
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Never. Not as long the weak and feckless Republicans control congress.
And Barky said that Trump is ‘unfit’ to be POTUS...you can guarantee that if Trump was President there would NOT be any money changing hands for anything with Iran...
Reagan didn’t ‘buy off Iran to get those hostages back’ now did he? NO, but Barky is totally ‘UNFIT’ to be President!!!
Really stupid argument. Do we really believe the Iranians are not able to follow both negotiations simultaneously, and make sure that all their requirements are fulfilled?
As for the WH and State, I'm not so sure...
If you go back and look, no speaker at the DNC convention that I saw wore a flag pin. None.
[...and Obama/Jarrett’s cut is ?]
How about the slush fund of The Criminal Clinton Foundation?
Where did Obama get the dough? My memory from US Government class is the expenditure to be approved by the House first.
***************
That’s how things used to work. No more. Obama makes the laws and spends what he wants.
Democracy is an illusion. We are in actuality a kleptocracy.
Not when it is paid in small unmarked bills.
Trump for President.
Bookmark
0bama and John FN Kerry gives Iran $400m -- a 25% Down payment on $1.7 BILLION payout on a previously denied ransom. The entire incident was yet one more LIE and STUNT (that the MSM and US Congress will ignore.) If this isn't one more Impeachable/Indictable offense perpetrated by this treasonous, lying regime, then what is??
This stunt was designed not to only emasculate America and our military, but also:
1) Finance Iran's nuke capabilities with which to threaten Israel
2) Undermines America's credibility and prestige
3) Enriches the Bank accounts of several (unnamed) co-treasonous, political whores who STOLE that money FROM the American Taxpayer and split the "profits" with our enemy.
4) SUPPORTS AND FINANCES THE WORLD JIHAD AGAINST AMERICA, THE WEST, ISRAEL.
Yet the BIG NEWS and crucial meme within the MSM is still Trump's supposed "offensive" words about a Muslim "Gold Star Family"??
WHERE IS GEORGE W. BUSH'S PUBLIC OUTRAGE AND CHASTISEMENT OF 0BAMA, KERRY, and HILLARY?? (Oh wait....zzzzz) Some great patriot THIS guy is.
If there is no "controlling legal authority" why didn't he send them a billion dollars?
It's deeper than that; I wonder what Ryan's, McConnell's, McCain's, and Graham's cuts are for their conspicuous lack of curiosity and criticism.
Of course the Republican establishment could hammer Obama with this and take the heat off Trump, but they won’t: The same evil puppet-masters that are paying off Obama are paying off the GOP as well......Xerxes’ gold is in their pockets.
exactly....Xerxes’ gold lines their pockets as well.
It’ll be a “strongly worded” rebuke on the Senate floor at 3:00AM.
Iranian dominance of the region, America’s losing face and the will to fight Muslim slavery-reparations-bribery money. Same as in 1803.
Obola is not in this for the money and privileges. (Michelle is of course. Michelle’s MOTHER is even more so. Hillary is TOTALLY for the money and power. And abortion, but even that is just a means to keep the women she needs for her power enslaved.)
But Obola? The power he holds in an enslaved media-controlled little world.
I want to see the voucher for the expenditure. I also want to see a detailed invoice.
Where is the GAO?
It was ransom.
5.56mm
[This monumental stunt and scam] “created a series of diplomatic opportunities for the United States that we’ve capitalized on.”
Exactly WHAT "opportunity," and exactly WHO is "WE," Kemosabe??
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