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Iran may have received an additional $33.6 billion in secret cash and gold payments facilitated by the Obama administration between 2014 and 2016, according to testimony provided before Congress by an expert on last summer’s nuclear agreement with Iran. Between January 2014 and July 2015, when the Obama administration was hammering out the final details of the nuclear accord, Iran was paid $700 million every month from funds that had previously been frozen by U.S. sanctions. A total of $11.9 billion was ultimately paid to Iran, but the details surrounding these payments remain shrouded in mystery, according to Mark Dubowitz,...

The State Department issued a warning on Monday urging U.S. citizens to avoid traveling to Iran, which has made the detention of American a priority. The latest travel advisory, which emphasizes Iran’s desire to capture U.S. citizens, comes on the heels of a growing scandal over the Obama administration’s decision to pay Iran $400 million in cash on the same day that it freed several U.S. hostages. The payment has been cast by lawmakers and others as a ransom payment and prompted increasing concern among U.S. officials that Iran is making arresting Americans a priority. The travel warning is mean...

The State Department admitted Thursday that the US would not hand over $400 million in cash to Iran until it released four American hostages — two weeks after President Obama insisted the payment was not a “ransom.” State Department spokesman John Kirby was asked at Thursday’s press briefing: “In basic English, you’re saying you wouldn’t give them $400 million in cash until the prisoners were released, correct?” “That’s correct,” Kirby replied. In an Aug. 4 press conference, President Obama said the opposite.

What’s Worse: $400 Million for Iran or $4 Billion for Iran’s Terror-Sponsoring Ally on our Doorstep? Funding terror in our own backyard. August 17, 2016 Humberto Fontova    If it’s any consolation, the $400 million Obama recently smuggled to terror-sponsoring Iran wasn’t (directly) extorted from the American taxpayer. Instead it was money the Shah (Iran’s ruler in 1979) paid for U.S. military equipment shortly before he was deposed by the terror-sponsoring maniacs still running Iran.   Amazingly, the U.S. never delivered the arms to the Shah’s “successors,” who still claim rightful ownership of U.S. jets, tanks, etc.  The recently...

U.S. Held Cash Until Iran Freed Prisoners An Iranian cargo plane left Geneva with $400 million in cash after a flight with Americans aboard took off from Tehran in January By Jay Solomon and Carol E. Lee Aug. 17, 2016 5:27 p.m. ET WASHINGTON—New details of the $400 million U.S. payment to Iran earlier this year depict a tightly scripted exchange specifically timed to the release of several American prisoners held in Iran, based on accounts from U.S. officials and others briefed on the operation. U.S. officials wouldn't let Iranians take control of the money until a Swiss Air Force...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The State Department says a $400 million cash payment to Iran was contingent on the release of American prisoners. Spokesman John Kirby says negotiations over the United States' returning Iranian money from a decades-old account was conducted separately from the prisoner talks. But he says the U.S. withheld delivery of the cash as leverage until the U.S. citizens had left Iran. Both events occurred Jan. 17. Kirby spoke after The Wall Street Journal reported that the departures of the crisscrossing planes were linked.

Iran is preparing to indict a detained U.S. man, accusing him of acting against the country’s national security interests, a source familiar with the case has told The Foreign Desk. Gholamreza Shahini, 46, known to his friends as Robin, has come under the government's radar for allegedly participating in the Green Revolution of 2009 against the government and collaborating on a TV interview with the US’ State Department-backed Voice of America, according to the indictment set to be unveiled at a Revolutionary Court. Shahini will also face a blasphemy charge for ‘insulting the revered’ on a Facebook page. Shahini kept...

Questions continue to linger about the Obama administration’s decision to deliver $400 million in pallets of foreign currency flown to Iran aboard an unmarked jetliner the same day five American hostages were released from Iranian custody. The State and Treasury Departments both told Breitbart News that the U.S. government transferred the remaining $1.3 billion, which was part of the same settlement for which the $400 million was an initial payment in January. However, despite numerous requests, neither State nor Treasury would provide an answer on how the Obama administration allegedly transferred to Iran the remaining $1.3 billion.

The Islamic Republic of Iran was designated a state sponsor of terrorism in 1984. That move came several years after Iran had seized American hostages while demanding $24 billion in cash and gold to be paid into a Muslim bank for their release. The total, according to Secretary of State Muskie, came out to $480 million per hostage.

The Obama administration quietly shipped $400 million stacked on wooden pallets in an unmarked plane to Iran in January — just as Tehran was releasing four Americans who had been detained there, according to a report. The huge cash load represented the first payment of a $1.7 € billion debt that Iran, at an international tribunal in The Hague, claimed it was owed over a failed 1979 arms deal signed before the fall of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal Tuesday night.

The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.

U.S. Sent Cash to Iran as Americans Were Freed Obama administration insists there was no quid pro quo, but critics charge payment amounted to ransom By Jay Solomon and Carol E. Lee Aug. 2, 2016 7:51 p.m. ET 52 COMMENTS WASHINGTON—The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward. Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane,...

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...