Yes sir.
The GAO staff has those docs on file...somewhere.
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.
“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.
The Republican Congress has become completely impotent...They are useless to the American people...We need some men in Congress...Or at least people who act like real men...
Right after he's done sticking another box of pins in his Trump voodoo doll.
The opportunities than you accurately enumerated in post #32:
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.
Another Nuremberg-type trial is needed. But this time around we'd need a far larger sitting area to accommodate all the defendants. Like maybe Yankee Stadium.
“Only a complete and utter moron pays money to his enemy.”
The Fraud in the white mosque is paying money to OUR enemy, HIS BFF’s.
Yes sir.
The GAO staff has those docs on file...somewhere.
If they were paying a legitimate debt - why in CASH - and mostly FOREIGN CASH?
If legitimate, it would have gone thru’ Congress.
and how much was kickback into their pockets?
Heh...SRO.
Coincidentally...like Nuremberg.
Here are all the Dem, GOPe, and MSM co-conspirators and defendants awaiting their trial:
![](http://www.history.co.uk/sites/default/files/styles/16_9_responsive/public/nuremberg_rally.jpg?itok=012_6a9e")
+400m
And is going to get much worse.
We have three branches of government to impeach, I believe.
“A government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
IF it's his enemy...
"Republicans lashed out Tuesday at the Obama administration ,,,"
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
Patriots, do not be misled by the corrupt Washington cartel demonizing Obama. I wouldn’t be surprised if we are seeing taxpayer dollars from Congress's unconstitutional, unaccountable Stimulus Package at work in Iran.
More specifically, noting that the corrupt, post-17th Amendment ratification Senate now helps the likewise corrupt House to pass unconstitutional and unpopular appropriations bills, the Founding States having drafted the Constitution’s Clause 1 of Section 7 of Article I (1.7.1 ) to give most responsibility for federal taxing and spending to the House of Representatives, not the Oval Office.
But we’re now seeing hypocritical Congress pointing the finger of irresponsible federal spending at last-term Obama.
If Obama gave $400 million out of taxpayer’s wallets to Iran, it’s because both corrupt Houses of Congress let him get away with doing so. In fact, note that Clause 7 of Section 9 of Alticle I complements 1.7.1 by requiring that no money comes out of the treasury without legislative action by Congress.
Article I, Section 9 Clause 7: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law [emphasis added]; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
(Patriots need to reconsider the 22nd Amendment. That amendment is helping to foster major corruption from last-term presidents with respect to corrupt legislative and executive branches imo. One possibility is to amend the Constitution so that state legislatures, not the Senate, approve justices nominated by the president.)
Remember in November !
Patriots need to support the Trump / Pence ticket by also electing a new, state sovereignty-respecting Congress that will not only work within its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers to support Trump’s vision for making America great again for everybody, but will also put a stop to unconstitutional and unpopular federal taxing and spending.
Note that such a Congress will also probably be willing to fire state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) was on Fox today and said that the reason Iran wanted the ransom in cash was that it makes it easy to hand over the cash to support Hezbollah and their terrorism against Israel
Israel & the Region
Republicans blast $400m Iran ‘ransom,’ say it encourages kidnappings
White House denies funds paid to Islamic Republic were to secure release of detained US citizens; say it was interest for 30-year-old failed arms deal By Rebecca Shimoni Stoil August 3, 2016, 10:49 pm 1
The US is forbidden from engaging in dollar transactions with Iran, and so the funds were reportedly transferred into foreign currency, packed in crates, and transferred to Iran via Europe.
Prominent Republicans in the House and Senate alike argued Wednesday that the transfer of funds would undermine US security, particularly by encouraging Iran to detain more Americans, in the hopes of securing additional cash.
http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/dollars-iran.jpg
“It is nothing but a series of bribes and secret agreements that will do nothing to prevent Iran from reaching nuclear capability, yet will provide funding for their sponsorship of terrorism and encourage them to detain more of our citizens. This ‘deal’ should be ripped to shreds immediately before more damage is done.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/republicans-blast-400m-iran-ransom-say-it-encourages-kidnappings/
King FUBO once again shows whose side he is on.
“Where is the authorization for this $400 million cash payment? I thought congress had to appropriate expenditures.
If there is no “controlling legal authority” why didn’t he send them a billion dollars?”
_____________________________________________________
That is the “$400 million” dollar question...
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