Iran may have received $33.6 BILLION in secret payments facilitated by Obama administration

It’s striking that Barack Obama, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military, is doing backroom deals with Iran, which the U.S. State Department has listed as the top state sponsor of terrorism in the world. It is now reported that:

“Iran may have received an additional $33.6 billion in secret cash and gold payments facilitated by the Obama administration between 2014 and 2016, according to testimony provided before Congress by an expert on last summer’s nuclear agreement with Iran.”

A former Pentagon official and specialist on rogue regimes, Michael Rubin, stated that payments of this nature are “highly irregular” and they “bolstered the strength of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and augmented its ability to finance and conduct terrorism.”

This secret deal announcement also comes at a time of increasing provocation by Iran against American vessels in the Gulf. Seven Iranian Islamic Republican Guard Corps Navy attack craft charged at a U.S. coastal patrol ship. The patrol shift swerved to avoid a crash. Such harassment on the seas by Iran was not the first time:

“The incident is the latest in a series of interactions the Navy has called “dangerous and unprofessional” in a year that has seen more run-ins between U.S. and Iranian ships than in recent memory.”

America continues to be humiliated and beaten down by Islamic supremacist bullies under a highly questionable administration that is leading America into steep decline, while citizens appear to be collectively incapacitated by fears of charges of “Islamophobia” and a simple disbelief that any of this could really be happening.

“Iran May Have Received as Much as $33.6 Billion in Cash, Gold Payments From U.S.”, by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, September 8, 2016:

Iran may have received an additional $33.6 billion in secret cash and gold payments facilitated by the Obama administration between 2014 and 2016, according to testimony provided before Congress by an expert on last summer’s nuclear agreement with Iran.

Between January 2014 and July 2015, when the Obama administration was hammering out the final details of the nuclear accord, Iran was paid $700 million every month from funds that had previously been frozen by U.S. sanctions.

A total of $11.9 billion was ultimately paid to Iran, but the details surrounding these payments remain shrouded in mystery, according to Mark Dubowitz, executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

In total, “Iran may have received as much as $33.6 billion in cash or in gold and other precious metals,” Dubowitz disclosed.

New questions about these payments are emerging following confirmation from top Obama administration officials on Thursday that it was forced to pay Iran $1.7 billion in cash prior to the release of several U.S. hostages earlier this year. The administration insisted that cash had to be used for this payment.

Top administration officials were adamant that the cash payments were the best way to ensure that Iran got immediate access to this money due to its ongoing difficulty accessing international funds still sanctioned by the West.

Lawmakers and others are now pressing the administration to disclose how a slew of other payments to Iran were made in the years leading up to the final nuclear accord……

Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and expert on rogue regimes, said that cash payments of this nature are “highly irregular.”

“There’s no reason it needed to be paid now. After all, successive administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have delayed payments so as to avoid funding Iranian terrorism,” Rubin said. “Likewise, if the United States freezes accounts linked to al Qaeda or Hamas, releasing it and saying, ‘It’s their money anyway,’ would not be a tenable explanation. Cash payments are highly irregular.”

The Iranians have been clear that they “perceived the payment to be a ransom” despite the administration’s protestations, Rubin explained.

“Not only has the delivery of the millions of dollars been perceived as a ransom, provided as an incentive to seize more hostages …. but because the money was delivered in cash the payment bolstered the strength of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and augmented its ability to finance and conduct terrorism,” he said.

Source: Iran may have received $33.6 BILLION in secret payments facilitated by Obama administration