Thread: Iran May Have Received as Much as $33.6 Billion in Cash, Gold Payments From U.S.

Iran May Have Received as Much as $33.6 Billion in Cash, Gold Payments From U.S.

New questions emerge on several billions paid out to Iran by Obama admin

John Kerry, left, and Javad Zarif / AP

BY: Adam Kredo
September 8, 2016 3:05 pm

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, executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

In total, “Iran may have received as much as $33.6 billion in cash or in gold and other precious metals,” Dubowitz disclosed.

New questions about these payments are emerging following confirmation from top Obama administration officials on Thursday that it was forced to pay Iran $1.7 billion in cash prior to the release of several U.S. hostages earlier this year. The administration insisted that cash had to be used for this payment.

Top administration officials were adamant that the cash payments were the best way to ensure that Iran got immediate access to this money due to its ongoing difficulty accessing international funds still sanctioned by the West.

Lawmakers and others are now pressing the administration to disclose how a slew of other payments to Iran were made in the years leading up to the final nuclear accord.

“In July, the Associated Press cited U.S. officials who estimated that Iran ‘brought home less than $20 billion.’ Were these funds repatriated to Tehran in cash or in gold and precious metals? Through the formal financial system? Or through some combination?” Dubowitz asked in his testimony before the House Financial Services Committee.

“The administration should also clarify if the $20 billion dollars is inclusive of the $11.9 billion in [Joint Plan of Action] funds, or if the $20 billion was in addition to the $11.9 billion,” he said. “Either way, it is important to understand how funds were sent. The worst-case scenario here is that Iran may have received as much as $33.6 billion in cash or in gold and other precious metals.”

At least some of this money was likely sent in cash and other assets, according to Dubowitz.

The Obama administration was forced to disclose on Thursday that current sanctions and banking restrictions prohibited it from transferring funds to Iran via electronic methods.

The cash payment of $1.7 billion earlier this year was the easiest way to ensure Iran got immediate access to the money, according to these officials.

“Iran had to have it in cash,” Paul Ahern, assistant general counsel for enforcement and intelligence at the Treasury Department, told lawmakers. “Iran was very aware of the difficulties it would face in accessing and using the funds if they were in any other form than cash, even after the lifting of sanctions.”

A cash delivery “was the most reliable way that they received the funds in a timely manner and it was the manner preferred by the relative foreign banks,” Ahren said.

Given the situation, it is likely that the multiple past payments to Iran were conducted in a similar fashion, according to Dubowitz.

“If the White House could only send cash to Iran from the start of the JPOA period through the Tribunal payment that could amount to a grant total of 33.6 billion,” he said. “Did any of this money go through the formal financial system? If so, the administration is not being truthful about the 1.7 billion. If many billions arrived in Iran on pallets [of cash] this would be a pretty astounding revelation.”

Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and expert on rogue regimes, said that cash payments of this nature are “highly irregular.”

“There’s no reason it needed to be paid now. After all, successive administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have delayed payments so as to avoid funding Iranian terrorism,” Rubin said.

“Likewise, if the United States freezes accounts linked to al Qaeda or Hamas, releasing it and saying, ‘It’s their money anyway,’ would not be a tenable explanation. Cash payments are highly irregular.”

The Iranians have been clear that they “perceived the payment to be a ransom” despite the administration’s protestations, Rubin explained.

“Not only has the delivery of the millions of dollars been perceived as a ransom, provided as an incentive to seize more hostages …. but because the money was delivered in cash the payment bolstered the strength of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and augmented its ability to finance and conduct terrorism,” he said.

Iran May Have Received as Much as $33.6 Billion in Cash, Gold Payments From U.S.

September 7, 2016 By Kristie McDonald

US payment of $1.7 billion to Iran made entirely in cash



From New York Post

The Obama administration is acknowledging its transfer of $1.7 billion to Iran earlier this year was made entirely in cash, using non-U.S. currency, as Republican critics of the transaction continued to denounce the payments.

Treasury Department spokeswoman Dawn Selak said in a statement late Tuesday that the cash payments were necessary because of the “effectiveness of U.S. and international sanctions,” which isolated Iran from the international finance system.

The $1.7 billion was the settlement of a decades-old arbitration claim between the U.S. and Iran. An initial $400 million of euros, Swiss francs and other foreign currency was delivered on pallets Jan. 17, the same day Tehran agreed to release four American prisoners.

The Obama administration is acknowledging its transfer of $1.7 billion to Iran earlier this year was made entirely in cash, using non-U.S. currency, as Republican critics of the transaction continued to denounce the payments.

Treasury Department spokeswoman Dawn Selak said in a statement late Tuesday that the cash payments were necessary because of the “effectiveness of U.S. and international sanctions,” which isolated Iran from the international finance system.

The $1.7 billion was the settlement of a decades-old arbitration claim between the U.S. and Iran. An initial $400 million of euros, Swiss francs and other foreign currency was delivered on pallets Jan. 17, the same day Tehran agreed to release four American prisoners.

Read Full Story At New York Post

http://eheadlines.com/us-payment-of-...irely-in-cash/

Mark Levin: Obama Lied About Iranian Nuke Side Deals – ‘Impeachable!’

“We’ve just sold out to them!"

by Randy DeSoto September 2, 2016 at 4:52pm

Radio talk show host Mark Levin could barely contain his anger after learning the Obama administration lied to the American public about the existence of secret side deals that materially changed the Iran nuclear deal.

Citing a Reuters story on his program on Thursday, Levin said, “This is the biggest issue of the day, the biggest issue of the month, the biggest issue of the year!”

Yet it is not getting the media attention it warrants, he contended.

The Reuters story is based on a report by the Institute for Science and International Security, which faults the Obama administration for failing to inform Congress and the American people about major waivers granted to the Iran nuclear deal’s terms.

According to the New York Post, “[T]hey were all enacted for one particular reason: Without them, according to [a United Nations weapons inspector’s] report, Tehran couldn’t have met last January’s deadline for compliance with the public requirements of the deal. And that, in turn, would’ve meant Iran couldn’t start getting sanctions relief.”

Levin, who served as an attorney in the Reagan administration, charged, “These are impeachable offenses. For Obama. For Vice President [Joe] Biden. For Secretary of State [John] Kerry. For [National Security Advisor] Susan Rice. For the whole top level of the administration, the president on down.”

The exemptions allow Iran to keep stockpiles of low-enriched uranium as well as heavy water beyond the caps set forth in the plan.

The amount of the low-enriched uranium Iran is being allowed to stockpile beyond the 300 kilograms provided by the agreement is unknown, therefore experts cannot know how much is available to the regime for potential conversion to weapons-grade materials.

Iran was also permitted to maintain control of its heavy water, which is used in the production of nuclear weapons. The agreement provided it could keep only 130 tons in country, but the exemption allows Tehran to store the excess in nearby Oman.

Additionally, Iran was allowed to keep “19 radiation containment chambers larger than the accord set. These so-called ‘hot cells’ are used for handling radioactive material but can be ‘misused for secret, mostly small-scale plutonium separation efforts,’ said the report. Plutonium is another nuclear weapons fuel,” according to Reuters.

After he finished reading key portions of the Reuters story to his listeners, Levin lamented, “We have just armed up the most aggressive, detestable terrorist state on the face of the earth!”

“We’ve just sold out to them! They’re on their way [to] building nuclear weapons!” the commentator pronounced. “This is the fate that Barack Obama has sealed for the American people!”

“They may seek to wash their hands, but their hands are full of uranium! Their hands are full of plutonium!” he said.

Reuters reported that the Obama administration denied it has made any secret deals, but “repeatedly declined to directly address the report’s findings on the exemptions, saying the joint commission’s work is ‘confidential.'”

In August, President Obama was accused of lying to the American people about the link between a $400 million cash payment to Iran and the release of four American hostages.

Further, the president stated the payment had to be in cash because the United States did not have a banking relationship with Iran, but the administration sent an additional $1.3 billion two days after the cash payment, apparently by wire transfer.


http://www.westernjournalism.com/mar...s-impeachable/

I think there is more to this story and Obama is up to no good.

After decades of fighting Iranian terrorist and nuclear ambitions, I find it highly suspicious in the cover of darkness Obama mysteriously finds billions of dollars in cash and hands it to Iran.

My gut tells me we are all in for a huge surprise after this traitor leaves the WH.

Nobody in the Obama Administration has answered the question????

The original 1970 US/Iranian principal dispute was $400 million. The U.S. already previously paid out $278 million of the $400 million
in 1991 leaving a net balance of $122 million owed to Iran.

I am not a self-described 'Harvard Law School so called Constitutional Professor' like our Appointed holy Obama but the math doesn't add up.
Why did Obama give Iran $33.6 billion??????

The House did not appropriate the funding as legally required.

Where did Obama get 726 metric tonnes of cash to funnel to Iran?

Is this part of the $300 billion of Obama's '$1.0 Trillion Stimulus Package' that mysteriously vanished without
a trace which today remains unaccountable?