Thread: GOP leaders blast Obama over Iran payment

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?

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

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?

Originally Posted by lorrie

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.

The Congress does more blah,blah,blah and nothing else. I think paying a ransom without disclosure should be illegal...

Originally Posted by Newmexican

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.

Originally Posted by Judy

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.

Exactly.

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/