House Speaker Paul Ryan said Friday that President Obama “owes the American people an immediate explanation” for its secret decision to lift ballistic missile-related sanctions against two Iranian banks on the same day four U.S. hostages were freed by the Iranian government.
In a statement issued Friday, Ryan accused Obama of violating “a key term of the nuclear deal,” recently signed by Iran and the United States, which kept the sanctions in place.
A congressional aide confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the Obama administration agreed to lift U.N. sanctions against two banks that had been blocked from international business because they provide financing for Iran’s ballistic missile program. They are Bank Sepah and Bank Sepah International.
The agreement, first reported in the Wall Street Journal, came on the same day the hostages were released. Those arrangements were also connected to a $1.7 billion cash payment the U.S. made to Iran, including $400 million that was delivered in cash before the hostages were permitted to leave the country.
“This story grows more disturbing with each passing day,” Ryan, R-Wis., said in his statement. “It now appears that on the same day American hostages were freed from Iran, the administration not only agreed to the $1.7 billion cash ransom payment, but violated a key term of the nuclear deal by prematurely lifting ballistic missile sanctions. These additional secret concessions directly jeopardize our national security, and cast further doubt on this flimsy agreement. President Obama owes the American people an immediate explanation.”
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., agreed that the lifting of sanctions raises new questions that the administration needs to answer, and said it seems more clear than ever that the payments and the release of hostages were linked.
“We also learned the Obama administration official who signed documents codifying this and other concessions to Tehran was the same official who signed the document obtaining the release of American hostages,” Rubio said.
“Who was the Iranian official who signed these documents?” he asked. “What arm of the Iranian government does he work for? The answers may shed some light on how Iran used those pallets of cash from American taxpayers.”
The Journal reported the agreement to lift sanctions on the two Iranian banks was reached in a “secret document” that allowed sanctions to be lifted seven years ahead of schedule.
The $1.7 billion cash payment had already infuriated Republicans in Congress who said that payment acted as a ransom that allowed Iran to release four U.S. prisoners. The arrangement prompted House Republicans to pass legislation last week that would ban the U.S. government from making any cash payments to Iran, a bill President Obama has said he would veto.
