Israel Matzav

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

'Most transparent administration evah' stonewalls Congress on Iran

Adam Kredo reports on the Obama administration's efforts to stonewall Congressional investigations into Obama's $1.7 billion cash payment to Iran.

As leading members of Congress petition the Obama administration for answers about what many describe as a $1.7 billion “ransom” payment to Iran, Obama administration officials are doubling down on their refusal to answer questions about the secret negotiations with Iran that led to this payment.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), a vocal opponent of last year’s nuclear deal with Iran, has been seeking answers from senior Obama administration officials since at least late September. However, officials continue to stonewall the senator’s inquiries, according to senior congressional sources and formal communications between Rubio and the State Department obtained by the Free Beacon.

Rubio and several other lawmakers have petitioned the Obama administration for documents and information about the secret negotiations that resulted in Tehran receiving $1.7 billion in cash and a promise from the United States to further roll back sanctions on an Iranian financial institution that helped finance the country’s illicit ballistic missile program.

...

Rubio submitted a list of questions about the deal to Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sept. 29 during a hearing aimed at examining these payments to Iran.

Blinken finally provided answers to these questions last week, but declined to address all specific questions Rubio posed about the secret negotiations over the $1.7 billion payment.

While the Obama administration has maintained for months that the payment was not part of a ransom package, the Free Beacon and other publications have disclosed in recent weeks that the United States did engage in secret diplomacy with Iran on a range of issues, including the release of American hostages and the $1.7 billion payment.

These issues were addressed in three separate agreements that were only finalized once the United States agreed to provide Tehran with the $1.7 billion payment. Secret documents stored on Capitol Hill and treated in a classified manner show that each of the agreements hinged on the cash payment, the Free Beacon first disclosed in October.

Rubio and other lawmakers have also sought answers from Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who would have played a role in signing off on the agreements. Lynch has declined to answer questions, prompting Rubio and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), the incoming CIA director, to accuse her of “pleading the fifth” before Congress.

The White House has not responded to similar questions submitted by Rubio on Sept. 10, and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has not answered a series of queries posed on Oct. 25, according to sources who accused the administration of intentionally dodging congressional oversight.

Rubio asked Blinken to provide information on any U.S. official who signed off on the secret deals, and to specify if the agreements were part of the formal nuclear agreement or were inked separately. He also asked whether the deals were tied to the release of U.S. hostages.

Rubio hopes to obtain the name of the Iranian official or officials who signed these documents. Sources familiar with the deals and secret documents stored on Capitol Hill told the Free Beacon it is likely the United States inked these deals with a representative of Iran’s intelligence apparatus.

Blinken did not provide firm answers to any of these questions, according to a copy of his formal communication to Rubio viewed by the Free Beacon. He maintained that the cash payment was part of a decades-old legal dispute with Tehran before the international claims tribunal at the Hague.

The saddest part of all this is that most of the damage Obama has caused to American interests cannot be undone, and Obama, Kerry, Wendy Sherman Valerie Jarrett, Loretta Lynch and all the rest of this treasonous crew are unlikely to ever face prosecution for it.

A Presidency that will live in infamy. #ObamaLegacy

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, Loretta Lynch, ransom, Valerie Jarrett, Wendy Sherman

Sunday, August 07, 2016

Snopes goes political, destroys credibility

I assume that most of you have heard of the 'myth-busting' site Snopes.com. Snopes forayed into politics last week and may have destroyed its own credibility. From the second link.

In January 2016, the Obama administration successfully negotiated the release of four Americans who had been imprisoned in Iran in exchange for the release of seven Iranians who had been imprisoned in the United States. (A fifth American prisoner was released separately.) At around the same time, the U.S. airlifted the equivalent of USD$400 million in various currencies to Tehran, sparking conspiracy theories about the timing:

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) was among those who seized on the timing and cloak-and-dagger delivery method, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, saying it proved suspicions that the Obama administration had tried to hide a payment for the four Americans, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian. GOP candidate Donald Trump called it an example of the administration’s foreign policy failures.

“Obama administration sent plane load of cash to #Iran as ransom as part of deal on hostages. Just unreal,” tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a long-standing critic of the Iran talks.

As with other issues that would normally fall by the wayside in a normal daily news cycle, the payout to Iran became prime fodder for yet another election-year debate:

State Department spokesman John Kirby joined Bill Hemmer on "America's Newsroom" to defend a $400 million cash transfer to Iran during the release of four Iranian-held U.S. hostages.
Kirby said the money had been frozen in a trust fund in the U.S. for decades and it was "their money."
He asserted that the fact that the transaction occurred during the release of the detained Americans was "coincidental." Hemmer pressed Kirby, saying that it appears that this cash transfer was kept secret and was effectively a "ransom."
"It looks bad," Hemmer said.
In reality, however, the money transfer was the result of a settlement of a long-standing claim at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal in The Hague around the same time that the prisoners were released.

So why should it bother us that $400 million was paid in small unmarked bills, in cash, via an unmarked airplane in violation of US law? At the third link, Robert Gehl explains:

So those are the facts. Yet Snopes conveniently leaves out one key detail: the Iranians demanded this payment as a condition of releasing those four Americans.

Whatever the terms were before, and whether or not we were going to eventually give them this money anyway, is inconsequential. Iran demanded the money, so we gave it to them. Period. But that’s not how they see it:

“[T]he money transfer was the result of a settlement of a long-standing claim at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal in The Hague around the same time that the prisoners were released. The Tribunal was created specifically to deal with diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States.”
Snopes spends most of the article rehashing points that nobody disputes – the story was covered before, the money was owed to Iran, blah, blah, blah.

The point is that Snopes is conveniently glossing over the most salient and important news item to come out of the initial story: that Iran demanded the money in exchange for the hostages and that Iranian officials call the money a “ransom payment.”