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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Obama's hidden Iran deal giveaway |
| 2017-04-25 |
| [Politico] When President Barack Obama announced the "one-time gesture" of releasing Iranian-born prisoners who "were not charged with terrorism or any violent offenses" last year, his administration presented the move as a modest trade-off for the greater good of the Iran nuclear agreement and Tehran’s pledge to free five Americans. "Iran had a significantly higher number of individuals, of course, at the beginning of this negotiation that they would have liked to have seen released," one senior Obama administration official told reporters in a background briefing arranged by the White House, adding that "we were able to winnow that down to these seven individuals, six of whom are Iranian-Americans." But Obama, the senior official and other administration representatives weren’t telling the whole story on Jan. 17, 2016, in their highly choreographed rollout of the prisoner swap and simultaneous implementation of the six-party nuclear deal, according to a POLITICO investigation. In his Sunday morning address to the American people, Obama portrayed the seven men he freed as "civilians." The senior official described them as businessmen convicted of or awaiting trial for mere "sanctions-related offenses, violations of the trade embargo." In reality, some of them were accused by Obama’s own Justice Department of posing threats to national security. Three allegedly were part of an illegal procurement network supplying Iran with U.S.-made microelectronics with applications in surface-to-air and cruise missiles like the kind Tehran test-fired recently, prompting a still-escalating exchange of threats with the Trump administration. Another was serving an eight-year sentence for conspiring to supply Iran with satellite technology and hardware. As part of the deal, U.S. officials even dropped their demand for $10 million that a jury said the aerospace engineer illegally received from Tehran. And in a series of unpublicized court filings, the Justice Department dropped charges and international arrest warrants against 14 other men, all of them fugitives. The administration didn’t disclose their names or what they were accused of doing, noting only in an unattributed, 152-word statement about the swap that the U.S. "also removed any Interpol red notices and dismissed any charges against 14 Iranians for whom it was assessed that extradition requests were unlikely to be successful." Three of the fugitives allegedly sought to lease Boeing aircraft for an Iranian airline that authorities say had supported Hezbollah, the U.S.-designated terrorist organization. A fourth, Behrouz Dolatzadeh, was charged with conspiring to buy thousands of U.S.-made assault rifles and illegally import them into Iran. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #6 You don't go to Politico for the real story so whatever they say, It's much worse. |
| Posted by: newc 2017-04-25 18:14 |
| #5 I think part of the deal was that Iran will give Obama a few hundred millions in return for the one or two billions that's freed up for Iran to use again. He'd do it for free. |
| Posted by: gorb 2017-04-25 12:34 |
| #4 I'm suspicious by nature. I would not be surprised if billions of $s were sent thru Iran (laundered) and then part of it found its way back to the U.S. and Obama's and the Donk pockets in exchange for these favors to Iran. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2017-04-25 10:45 |
| #3 I think part of the deal was that Iran will give Obama a few hundred millions in return for the one or two billions that's freed up for Iran to use again. Follow the money folks. |
| Posted by: Seeking cure for ignorance 2017-04-25 10:41 |
| #2 When palletized millions in USD and Swiss fracs began to be shipped to Iran in the middle of the night, a special session of congress should have been called. Nothing happened, and for obvious reasons, I suspect nothing will. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2017-04-25 08:08 |
| #1 So we still don't know the full story on the Iran deal? What was Obama's real quid pro quo in the deal--he wasn't just a boy scout doing a good deed where he got some jamocos released from an Iranian prison in exchange for giving away the house. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2017-04-25 08:05 |