Sen. James Lankford on Thursday demanded answers from President Obama on the $1.7 billion in cash payments he made to Iran, and said people “deserve to know the full extent” of the controversial payment.
The Oklahoma Republican wants the president to answer 13 questions by Sept. 19, including why the payments were made in cash, whether Iran had requested cash, if there were worries that cash could not be tracked in the way a wire transfer could, and if there are any other settlement negotiations underway with Iran.
Lankford also wants to know if since January if there any evidence that Iran has used any of the money to finance military or terrorist-related activities, something officials said they were reasonably sure is not happening, but not 100 percent sure.
“Over the course of three days in January 2016, the United States paid the government of Iran $400 million in cash, lifted sanctions that facilitated that cash payment and then transferred an additional $1.3 billion in cash from a taxpayer-funded account as an interest payment to the Islamic Republic,” Lankford told the president in his Thursday letter to Obama.
“The American people rightly have questions about how this transfer took place and deserve to know the full extent of the relationship between the U.S. and Iran,” he added.
In January, the State Department announced a payment of $1.7 billion to Iran to settle a military equipment payment case from before Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, but didn’t say how the payment was made. Months later, officials acknowledged it was cash, and Republicans have said the payment served as a ransom payment to ensure the release of four American hostages.
Last month, Obama told reporters that cash was used because the U.S. doesn’t have a banking relationship with Iran, an argument that hasn’t satisfied Republicans.
“You promised transparency at the beginning of your administration, which is an essential and reasonable expectation of an open Republic like our nation. The American people should know how their hard-earned tax dollars were spent and the details of agreements that were made on their behalf,” Lankford concluded in his letter. “Every American’s signature was implicitly placed on that Agreement by your administration, so every American should have access to the facts of the agreement.”
