Senators Demand Answers over ‘Dangerous’ $6B Iran ‘Ransom’ Payment, ‘Sidestepping’ Congress

Gaza Iran
AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Sakineh Salimi/Borna News/Aksonline ATPImages/Getty Images
Joshua Klein

Republican senators are demanding “answers” after the Biden administration struck a deal with the Iranian regime to transfer five Iranian Americans from prison to house arrest in exchange for billions in unfrozen assets.

The Biden administration’s deal with Tehran to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian financial assets and release a “handful” of Iranian nationals jailed for violating U.S. sanctions in exchange for five Americans taken prisoner by Iran on highly dubious charges of espionage, came to light last week. 

In response, Republican officials blasted the current administration for “bowing to the Ayatollah” and “endangering” Americans.

On Friday, Republican senators demanded “answers” regarding the deal.

The Biden administration’s decision to release such a significant sum to the Iranian regime runs entirely counter to our policy of not negotiating with terrorists & will only serve to encourage additional hostage taking for financial or political gain.

A press release from the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee reveals that a letter was sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressing “significant concern” over the “ransom payment,” while warning it would only encourage more kidnappings.

“When the Obama administration released $400 million in liquidated assets to Iran in 2016, we warned that this dangerous precedent would put a price on American lives. Seven years later, the current administration is providing a ransom payment worth at least fifteen times that amount to the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, in yet another violation of the United States’ long-standing ‘no concessions’ policy,” the letter reads.

It continues:

In the release of Executive Order 14078 on July 19, 2022, the White House admitted that ‘terrorist organizations, criminal groups, and other malicious actors who take hostages for financial, political, or other gain — as well as foreign states that engage in the practice of wrongful detention, including for political leverage or to seek concessions from the United States — threaten the integrity of the international political system and the safety of United States nationals and other persons abroad.’ 

“The release of such a significant sum to the Iranian regime runs entirely counter to that claim and will only serve to encourage additional hostage taking for financial or political gain,” it argues.

The senators also expressed “worry” that the Biden administration is “attempting to sidestep Congress and pursue other pathways to financially compensate Iran in an attempt to renegotiate a successor to the ill-fated 2015 nuclear deal.” 

“Any agreement with the Iranian regime that entails financial reward for malign behavior is wholly unacceptable,” they insist. 

Highlighting the risk that the agreement “poses to the safety of American citizens overseas and broader United States national security interests,” the lawmakers are requesting an in-person briefing as well as written responses to several questions, including how funds can be guaranteed to be used for humanitarian purposes and not assist the Iranian regime in supporting “terrorist networks and weapons proliferation, or increase its nuclear enrichment activities.”

The letter was spearheaded by Republican Senators Jim Risch (ID), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Tim Scott (SC), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

Signatories include GOP Sens. John Barrasso (WY), Marsha Blackburn (TN), Katie Britt (AL), Ted Budd (NC), Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Bill Cassidy (LA), John Cornyn (TX), Tom Cotton (AR), Kevin Cramer (ND), Mike Crapo (ID), Steve Daines (MT), Joni Ernst (IA), Lindsey Graham (SC), Chuck Grassley (IA), Bill Hagerty (TN), John Hoeven (ND), John Kennedy (LA), James Lankford (OK), Roger Marshall (KS), Pete Ricketts (NE), Thom Tillis (NC),  J.D. Vance (OH), Roger Wicker (MS), and Todd Young (IN).

Earlier this month, Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney of New York declared that the Iranian people’s “blood” is on President Joe Biden’s hands, and his administration is responsible for “financing terrorism,” as she accused the president of paying “ransom.” 

The deal follows massive protests that have swept Iran following the September death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the Islamic theocracy’s notorious “morality police” for violating strict requirements for women to keep their heads covered in public.

Amini was reportedly abducted and killed by the force for having exposed some hair from beneath her mandatory Islamic headscarf.

Since then, a slew of incidents involving abuses and even deaths at the hands of the regime have been documented amid an ongoing clampdown on protests, with clips circulating showing Iranian regime officers brutally assaulting protesters.

In response, criticisms of the Islamic regime and its tactics have continued to grow.

In May, over a hundred former world leaders penned an open letter to the heads of the U.S., Canada, the E.U., and the U.K. calling for the regime in Tehran to be held accountable for its long-running crimes against humanity.

Among the more than 100 signatories of the letter, including 50 former presidents and 47 former prime ministers, were former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Italian ex-premier Matteo Renzi.

That same month, the United States announced sanctions against Iranians accused of plotting to assassinate former U.S. government officials, dual U.S. and Iranian nationals, and dissidents.

In October, representatives of Iran’s parliament in exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) claimed Iran is currently witnessing a revolution “in the making,” asserting that despite the crimes and “savagery” committed by the regime’s “suppressive forces” — including the killing and torturing of protesters during current protests against the Islamic regime by angry citizens — the Islamic Republic is no longer capable of containing the current uprising.

Iran, the largest state sponsor of terrorism worldwide, has long viewed the United States as a principal antagonist and has frequently accused the U.S. of inciting protesters in a bid to “destabilize” the region.

Previously, Iranian Armed Forces Spokesman Brigadier-General Abolfazl Shekarchi affirmed that America is the Iranian republic’s top enemy, while the Islamic Republic’s “supreme leader” has boasted of having “defeated” the United States, as he assured a crowd of supporters that their “Death to America!” chant would yet be fulfilled as a “new order” would relegate the U.S. to isolation.

Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.

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