In 2015, when creating what ultimately became the Iran deal, “[t]he Obama administration skirted key U.S. sanctions to grant Iran access to billions in hard currency despite public assurances the administration was engaged in no such action, according to a new congressional investigation” from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, multiple outlets, such as the Washington Free Beacon, reported on Wednesday.
According to the report, “the U.S. Department of the Treasury, at the direction of the U.S. State Department, granted a specific license that authorized a conversion of Iranian assets worth billions of U.S. dollars using the U.S. financial system.” And the former administration allegedly continued to lie to Congress about it: “Even after the specific license was issued, U.S. government officials maintained in congressional testimony that Iran would not be granted access to the U.S. financial system,” the report states.
Subcommittee chair Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) summed up the thrust of the report’s findings thus:
“The Obama administration misled the American people and Congress because they were desperate to get a deal with Iran. Despite claims both before and after the Iran deal was completed that the U.S. financial system would remain off limits, the Obama administration issued a specific license allowing Iran to convert billions of dollars in assets using the U.S. financial system.”
President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran deal on May 8 of this year.
The subcommittee’s full report can be read here: http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/PSI-JCPOA-Specific-License-Report.pdf
