Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, issued the following statement in response to the Wall Street Journal’s report that the Obama Administration made a $400 million cash payment to Iran around the same time that Iran had released the four American hostages:
“Whether or not the $400 million payment was made as ransom, the optics couldn’t be any worse for American foreign policy or the safety of our citizens abroad. For generations, it has been the United States’ policy that America will not reward terrorists and hostage-takers with ransom because doing so puts a price tag on the head of every American and only further incentivizes these kidnappings.”
“Even if we assume that what the State Department is saying is true – that it was just a mere coincidence of timing between the two separately negotiated deals – the appearance of agreeing to send truck-loads of foreign currency around the globe at the same time as these hostages are being freed makes the deal look like a ransom payment to our enemies. The Obama Administration’s decision to hide these details from the American people makes it even worse.”
“At a time when terrorist attacks continue to ravage the American homeland and our allies around the world, we cannot afford to continue the Obama-Clinton pattern of capitulating to our enemies and cutting dangerous deals with Iran. The Administration owes the American people an explanation as to why they went to such lengths to accommodate state-sponsors of terrorism and why they chose to hide these details from the public.”
