Posted on 08/22/2016 11:12:58 PM PDT by Mr. Mojo
The State Department confirmed Monday that the Obama administration has paid Iran another $1.3 billion to settle a failed arms deal from 1979, but couldn't describe who in the Iran government it paid, and couldn't say what form that payment took — cash, check or otherwise.
The State Department also admitted it can't guarantee that the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps wouldn't be able to get its hands on the money eventually.
"We can always hand it over to someone who can hand it over to the IRGC," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters. Many in the U.S. see the IRGC as being responsible for helping to finance terrorism.
The administration agreed to pay Iran $1.7 billion to compensate that country for its payment to the U.S. in 1979 for military equipment. That deal fell through after Iran's government was overthrown, and the Obama administration has said it owes Iran this money, plus interest.
The first installment of the payment was a $400 million cash payment, which has drawn criticism from Republicans. They say it looks like a ransom payment to ensure the release of American hostages who Iran released this year.
When asked how the remaining $1.3 billion was paid, Toner said he didn't know.
"I'll try my best to get details about that," he said. He said the problem there is that the government generally doesn't want to reveal entities that help the U.S. make these payments, since the U.S. has no direct financial relationship with Iran.
But he said he also didn't know who received the payment.
"I believe it was Iranian officials, Iranian government officials, I don't know particularly who individually it was," he said.
When asked if anyone in the administration knows who was paid, he said he was "certain" that some in the U.S. knew, and said he just didn't have that information.
Toner explained that while the deal to complete the Iran nuclear deal and the deal to free U.S. hostages in Iran were separate, there were "snags" that delayed the completion of these agreements at the same time.
Because of those "snags," which he didn't detail, Toner said it would have been "imprudent" to simply hand over the money without waiting to ensure the hostages were released. Still, he said it wasn't "ransom," since it was money the U.S. owed Iran.
"But, in those final moments, it was decided that we were certainly going to use it as leverage, and that particular moment, until our citizens were back on a plane and safely out of Iranian airspace," he said.
But the White House seems to still disagree that it was "leverage" at all. At the White House briefing, spokesman Josh Earnest stressed that he never used that term, and that reporters should ask "someone else" who might have used the term.
Hezbollah, the Revolutionary Guard, and the nuke program.
What. The. Fluck?
I don’t know why the military hasn’t overthrown this banana republic yet.
We should be marching on the White Hut and pulling this Marxist piece of sh!t out of through the window like a booger from a nostril.
These state dept guys are hand in hand with Obama on all of his treason. Can we call it that yet? eventually everyone will.
If this sh1t went on under Bush imagine the reporting, and the impeachment hearings.
All the high up CO’s in the military have been purged, and replaced by brown shirts, fellow travelers.
I’m less concerned with how it got paid than where the money came from. Since when can a President hand out billions on his own initiative, without Congress appropriating the funds?
Who haven't got a testicle between them all it would seem.
Since Jan. of '09, when there was a quiet coup with a fully complicit media. The old laws no longer apply. ....until a Republican takes office.
I’ve always been told the house holds the purse strings. What gives? Our nation pisses away money to Islam while people suffer in America. Why are people not outraged!?
You have got to be kidding me...
It's easy
Make a claim against the United States and President Obama settles the case on your terms
He has used this trick to illegally give money to ObamaCare providers who are lgoing bankrupt to help hide the losses and the collapse of ObamaCare
He did the same by re naming and rebrandin Al Qaeda as “moderate Syrian Rebels” so he could give them supplies, equipment, weapons and training
bttt
For the love of God, when is our military gonna step in and arrest this terrorist regime?
They've been conditioned to be outraged only when the media gives them the signal. Like they did when it was discovered (a few years ago) that a Presidential candidate put his dog in a crate atop his car on a road trip decades ago. ....or (much more recently) when a candidate had the nerve to opine that he'd vet people from countries loaded with terrorists. The MSM expresses outrage, and tens of millions of unthinking, brainwashed sheep follow suit.
Comparatively few people think for themselves.
Sorry to say, but there are some very worried colonels out there.
Good grief. The outrages never end!
hey obama, you’re a piece of ####.
and EVERY single american that voted for you is either a piece of #### or so ####ing dumb they need to stop using up air.
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