A House Intelligence Committee member says he has additional evidence that the Obama administration skirted U.S. sanctions law when it sent $1.7 billion to Iran, The Washington Free Beacon reports.
Rep. Mike Pompeo said disclosures made to him by the Treasury Department in a letter, after he requested details of the money transfer, show that the first $400 million cash payment to Iran was wired to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) and then moved to an account at the Swiss National Bank.
FRBNY then "withdrew the funds from its account as Swiss franc banknotes and the U.S. government physically transported them to Geneva" before overseeing the handover to an Iranian central bank official.
Congress has been looking into the legality of the payments for months to determine as well if they were ransom for the release of Americans who were held in the Islamic Republic, but Pompeo says the administration has not provided most of the information they seek.
"By withholding critical details and stonewalling congressional inquiries, President Obama seems to be hiding whether or not he and others broke U.S. law by sending $1.7 billion in cash to Iran," Pompeo told the Free Beacon.
"But Americans can plainly see that the Obama administration laundered this money in order to circumvent U.S. law and appease the Islamic Republic of Iran."
Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken explained to CNN that as part of the nuclear deal with Tehran last year, some sanctions were lifted that freed up previously frozen Iranian assets, such as money the U.S. owed from an arms deal to the shah that did not go through.
Administration officials added that cash was the most reliable way to ensure Tehran received the funds, as its banking system is still under sanctions.
Other critics of the transfer, such as the American Action Forum, say that Iran has used tens of millions of the $1.7 billion it received from the U.S. to bolster its worldwide terrorism operations, including giving funds to organizations which have murdered American citizens.