Ran across a story, on MSN, about Obama Administration admitting the cash taken to Iran was part of a deal, to free American hostages. Rethugs in an uproar about Administration using tax dollars, to pay ransom. They are thinking about starting another investigation, which costs Tax Dollars, to see if Administration used Tax Dollars. Seems redundant to use tax dollars on an investigation, to see if tax dollars were used, when they have spent billions in investigations for Benghazi and E-mailghazi, which have not turned up anything, plus the government shut downs. So concerned about wasting tax payer dollars, yet they are right there to waste more of their time, when they should be passing legislation to help their constituents, not to waste their time and tax payer dollars.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration said Thursday that a $400 million cash payment to Iran seven months ago was contingent on the release of a group of American prisoners.
It is the first time the U.S. has so clearly linked the two events, which critics have painted as a hostage-ransom arrangement.
State Department spokesman John Kirby repeated the administration's line that the negotiations to return the Iranian money — from a decades-old military-equipment deal with the U.S.-backed shah in the 1970s — were conducted separately from the talks to free four U.S. citizens in Iran. But he said the U.S. withheld the delivery of the cash as leverage until Iran permitted the Americans to leave the country.
Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., said Thursday he sees congressional hearings"as the only way for the American people to fully know whether their tax dollars went directly to Iran's terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps."Kirk is chairman of the Senate Banking national security subcommittee. No hearing dates have been set. Congress returns from a lengthy recess after Labor Day.
