Everybody’s familiar with the infamous “pallet of cash” that was delivered to Iran, but it turns out the Obama administration was reportedly trying to pull off even more stops to help out the country the U.S. State Department designates as the #1 state sponsor of terrorism in the world:
#APNewsBreak: Secret Obama-era license would have allowed Iran to convert $5.7B by sidestepping sanctions kept in place after 2015 nuclear deal. https://t.co/yo0UAMozAj
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) June 6, 2018
https://twitter.com/esaagar/status/1004358704513372165
Obama Administration secretly tried to circumvent U.S. sanctions to help Iran. https://t.co/SWGWggNdh4
— Curtis Kalin (@CurtisKalin) June 6, 2018
Apparently no step was too out of bounds (or illegal) when it came to trying to secure Obama’s Iran Deal “legacy”:
The “scandal-free” Obama Administration becomes pretty damn scandal-ridden as time goes by https://t.co/WSZawqZofQ
— Cameron Gray (@Cameron_Gray) June 6, 2018
Scandal-free, amirite? https://t.co/Hvh7Fy4TKm
— JWF (@JammieWF) June 6, 2018
As ironic as it may sound, it was the large U.S. financial institutions that the Democrats often slam that prevented the Obama administration from doing that, according to the AP:
The report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations revealed that under President Barack Obama, the Treasury Department issued a license in February 2016, never previously disclosed, that would have allowed Iran to convert $5.7 billion it held at a bank in Oman from Omani rials into euros by exchanging them first into U.S. dollars. If the Omani bank had allowed the exchange without such a license, it would have violated sanctions that bar Iran from transactions that touch the U.S. financial system.
The effort was unsuccessful because American banks — themselves afraid of running afoul of U.S. sanctions — declined to participate. The Obama administration approached two U.S. banks to facilitate the conversion, the report said, but both refused, citing the reputational risk of doing business with or for Iran.
Wow.
But…we keep being told he never had any scandals. https://t.co/YvA6VUdWIL
— KingBruin (@kingj77) June 6, 2018
This should surprise absolutely zero people. The Obama administration was set on making the #IranDeal a "success," no matter the cost. https://t.co/cjz5Dm3rIa
— John Cooper (@thejcoop) June 6, 2018
“The president prides himself on the fact that his administration hasn’t had a scandal and he hasn’t done something to embarrass himself." – Former Obama Adviser, @ValerieJarrett https://t.co/4k0PDlgLch
— Michael Froedge (@Michael_Froedge) June 6, 2018
The problem is that former Obama officials probably wouldn’t consider this story to be “embarrassing” or a “scandal.”
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