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  1. #1
    Senior Member lorrie's Avatar
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    GOP leaders blast Obama over Iran payment

    August 03, 2016, 12:14 pm

    GOP leaders blast Obama over Iran payment



    Top Republicans on Wednesday blasted the Obama administration over a report that the U.S. made a secret $400 million payment to Iran that coincided with the release of four American prisoners.

    “If true, this report confirms our longstanding suspicion that the administration paid a ransom in exchange for Americans unjustly detained in Iran,” said Speaker Paul Ryan in a statement. “It would also mark another chapter in the ongoing saga of misleading the American people to sell this dangerous nuclear deal,” the Wisconsin Republican added. “Yet again, the public deserves an explanation of the lengths this administration went to in order to accommodate the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism."

    The Wall Street Journal reported late Tuesday that the Obama administration secretly airlifted $400 million in foreign currencies to Iran and cited Iranian news outlets that reported that the payment arrived on the same day that the prisoners were released.

    The money is the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the two countries agreed on regarding an abandoned arms deal from the 1970s.

    The settlement, announced in January, relates to money that Iran had sent to the U.S. as part of an arms deal that was abandoned shortly thereafter when the two countries broke diplomatic ties after Iran went through a regime change.

    The agreement stipulates that the U.S. would pay back the principal $400 million, plus $1.3 billion in interest.

    GOP lawmakers have been blasting the "secret deal" since it was first announced at the beginning of the year.

    “After nearly two months of stalling, the State Department confirmed what I feared was true: the Obama administration is negotiating behind closed doors with the Islamic Republic of Iran and using taxpayer dollars to pay the regime,” said Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) in a statement in March.

    “Worse yet, more of these payments are likely coming," he said.

    Administration officials have maintained that the payment had nothing to do with the release of the hostages. Seven Iranians under indictment or imprisoned in the U.S. were granted clemency as part of a prisoner swap.

    Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus joined Ryan in denouncing the administration over the payment. He blasted the Iran nuclear agreement that Obama pushed through Congress last year, saying it will help Iran funnel more money to terrorists.

    “This secret deal with Iran only shows how comfortable the Obama Administration is hiding the truth from the American people,” Priebus said in a statement.

    “At a time when our country is newly concerned about terrorist attacks, we can no longer afford such unprincipled and out-of-touch leadership on the world stage.”

    The RNC chairman also blasted Hillary Clinton, tying the former secretary of State and current Democratic presidential nominee to the administration’s dealings with Iran.

    “While our weak posture toward Iran undermines our interests, we cannot forget that Hillary Clinton was the initiator of this dangerous approach by spearheading the disastrous nuclear deal,” he said. “Disregarding the threat of radical Islamic terrorism is par for the course with the Democrat Party, and a Hillary Clinton presidency will only mean more of the corrupt bargaining with rogue regimes which has compromised the security of the United States and our ally Israel.”

    Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in a statement that the “revelation” is evidence that the deal is “fundamentally illegitimate.”

    “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,” he said in a statement. “This ‘deal’ should be ripped to shreds immediately before more damage is done.”


    This report was last updated at 12:55 p.m.






    http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...r-iran-payment

  2. #2
    Senior Member lorrie's Avatar
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    Where would Obama get the $400 million in cash???

    He didn't just pull it out of a hat......

    The funds would have to go through House appropriations and approved for that purpose right?

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    The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland.
    from the The Wall Street Journal

    $400 million sent to Iran as U.S. prisoners released, raising questions

    By Jay Solomon and Carol E. Lee
    Published: Aug 2, 2016 8:25 p.m. ET

    Secret payout unrelated, U.S. officials say

    Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, center, chats with Secretary of State John Kerry in January, after he was freed by Iran.

    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, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.

    The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

    The settlement, which resolved claims before an international tribunal in The Hague, also coincided with the formal implementation that same weekend of the landmark nuclear agreement reached between Tehran, the U.S. and other global powers the summer before.

    “With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well,” President Barack Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17 — without disclosing the $400 million cash payment.

    Senior U.S. officials denied any link between the payment and the prisoner exchange. They say the way the various strands came together simultaneously was coincidental, not the result of any quid pro quo.

    “As we’ve made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim…were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “Not only were the two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of The Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years.”

    But U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to show they had gained something tangible.

    Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas and a fierce foe of the Iran nuclear deal, accused President Barack Obama of paying “a $1.7 billion ransom to the ayatollahs for U.S. hostages.”

    “This break with longstanding U.S. policy [not to] put a price on the head of Americans, and has led Iran to continue its illegal seizures” of Americans, he said.
    Since the cash shipment, the intelligence arm of the Revolutionary Guard has arrested two more Iranian-Americans. Tehran has also detained dual-nationals from France, Canada and the U.K. in recent months.

    An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/400...08-02?AID=7236
    Last edited by artist; 08-03-2016 at 02:08 PM.

  4. #4
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by lorrie View Post
    Where would Obama get the $400 million in cash???

    He didn't just pull it out of a hat......

    The funds would have to go through House appropriations and approved for that purpose right?
    There are agencies like the CIA that have secret funds. That's how they armed ISIS in Syria. With CIA dark money they use in black-ops or whatever they call it. It was probably that money.
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    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    The Congress does more blah,blah,blah and nothing else. I think paying a ransom without disclosure should be illegal...

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    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Newmexican View Post
    The Congress does more blah,blah,blah and nothing else. I think paying a ransom without disclosure should be illegal...
    I already thought it was illegal.
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    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Judy View Post
    I already thought it was illegal.
    IT is but when has the Obama administration obeyed the laws? They are a a lawless pack of Socialists.

  8. #8
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    Exactly.
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    Trump on $400 million U.S. paid Iran: ‘We have been humiliated’

    By S.A. Miller - The Washington Times - Wednesday, August 3, 2016

    Donald Trump on Wednesday slammed President Obama and Hillary Clinton for the secret $400-million payment to Iran in January that coincided with the rogue nation’s release of four jailed Americans, saying the United States has been “humiliated.”

    “We have been humiliated by Press Obama and his policies. We have been humiliated by the Iran deal,” the Republican presidential nominee said at a rally in Daytona Beach, Florida.

    He was referring the the administration’s nuclear deal with Iran, which included the $400 million as the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement to resolve a failed arms deal signed before the 1979 Iranian revolution.

    The cash payment, shipped to Iran in an unmarked cargo plane in the dark of night, was first reported this week by the Wall Street Journal.

    Mr. Trump said that the deal with Iran could be traced back Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state when the U.S. opened the negotiations.

    “This was all started by Hillary Clinton. Everything was started by her. They relied on her,” he said.

    Mr. Trump said that Iran went form a country crippled by sanctions and on the verge of collapse before the deal to a “being a big power” after the deal.

    “We have a president who doesn’t know what the hell is going on,” he said.

    The White House said the payment was not a “ransom” for the release of the prisoner and that the timing was a coincidence.

    “It looks like we paid $400 million for the hostages. Such a bad precedent,” said Mr. Trump. “Two more [Iranian-Americans] have been kidnaped since then.”

    The New York businessman described the Iran deal as one of a series of failed policies linked to Mrs. Clinton. He noted that Mrs. Clinton was a driving force in favor of U.S. military intervention to help oust Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, which destabilized the country and provided a foothold for the Islamic State or ISIS.

    “She should get an awards from them as the founder of ISIS,” quipped Mr. Trump.

    He said that Mr. Obama likely wanted a “do-over” in his pick of secretary of state.

    Mr. Obama has praised Mrs. Clinton’s service as secretary of state and endorsed her for president.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...e-been-humili/
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  10. #10
    Senior Member lorrie's Avatar
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    Oh please, if, and that's a big if....the United States actually owed Iran this money from 1979, then
    it is long gone.

    $400m was not sitting in a closet for the last 37 years and it had to come from somewhere within our government.

    How and where would Obama get that amount of cash without anyone knowing about it?

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