The interview begins with an excerpt from the testimony of Mark Dubowitz before Congress on September 8, 2016 followed by questions from Liz MacDonald at Fox News.
|
Mark Dubowitz:
|
In July, US officials estimated that Iran had
repatriated quote, less than $20 billion from previously frozen overseas
assets of $100-125 billion. Were those funds also repatriated in cash and
gold? Was this in addition to the $11.9 billion? That could amount to a grand
total of $33.6 billion. Did any of this money go through the formal financial
system? If so, the administration is not being truthful about the $1.7
billion. If many billions of dollars arrived in Iran on pallets, this would
be a pretty astounding revelation.
|
|
Liz MacDonald:
|
The numbers keep getting bigger. First it was $400
million, now $1.7 billion, now $33 billion. My next guest has testified
before Congress yesterday about the money that Iran is getting. His
foundation for Defense of Democracies. He's the executive director there.
Mark Dubowitz joins me now. $33.6 billion in cash and gold. That's a lot.
That's quite a difference, Mark.
|
|
Mark Dubowitz:
|
Liz, it's a big difference. The problem is,
administration is just not coming clean on exactly how much money was sent to
Iran in cash and potentially gold. We're just trying to piece together from
what they have admitted in trying to establish a number. We've looked at the
fact that they've admitted $11.9 billion was provided to Iran as part of the
interim agreement. They claim that the Iranians have repatriated $20 billion.
The Iranians are claiming that they've gotten $30 billion. There's the $1.7
billion that we know about that was delivered in cash. I'm saying worst case
scenario here, the administration has green-lighted the transfer of about
$33.6 billion. I don't think it'll be that high, but we're certainly talking
many billions, not just 1.7.
|
|
Liz MaxDonald:
|
You know, Mark, you're really respected and you're held
in high regard down on Capitol Hill. The Associated Press ... You're right,
said back in July, Iran got up to $20 billion. It seemed like this is
happening all along, even though the sanctions were in place. Doesn't this
violate sanctions if the administration is giving Iran money? Isn't that
against the law?
|
|
Mark Dubowitz:
|
It doesn't violate sanctions that the administration is
green-lighting the transfer of money to Iran. What it does violate is decades
of US practice to transfer this money in cash. We've gone out to the
financial sector globally and we've said, "Look. You've got to comply
with laws against money laundering, against terror financing, and we're going
to impose billions of dollars worth of fines if you don't." We're trying
to get the formal financial system to use formal channels, and then we turn
around and green-light the transfer of cash to Iran. We all know, cash is
used by drug cartels, and terrorists, and arms dealers. It's sending the
wrong message.
|
|
Liz MacDonald:
|
Mark, you know, we already had the press secretary, Josh
Earnest say that the $400 million certainly possible that it did go to
nefarious activities, including terrorism in Iran. Basically, nefarious
activities conducted by Iran, including terrorist activity, certainly
Hezbollah. We also have a State Department official, he was pressed by reporters
on the Iran payouts specifics. Let's listen.
|
|
Reporter:
|
We asked about the specifics of the payments in January,
and were told that there was never, ever going to ... No one would ever tell
us.
|
|
Mark Toner:
|
Well, again, what you got was our standard answer, which
is true that we protect the confidentiality of these arrangements.
|
|
Reporter:
|
|
|
From the communications piece alone, if you had it all
to do over again, you'd do it exactly the same way, or was there a mistake
made in this over-abundance of caution and this dribbling out of details?
|
|
|
Mark Toner:
|
I wouldn't call it a mistake ...
|
|
Liz MacDonald:
|
Would you call it a mistake, Mark?
|
|
Mark Dubowitz:
|
The administration is in a very strange position and
they're trying to have it both ways. On one end they're saying, look there's
a financial embargo on Iran, so the only choice that we had was to send the
money in cash. That's true, and the only choice was to send the money in
cash, then did they send the $30 plus billion in cash? Alternatively, if
there are other ways to send the money, and that they actually sent all of
that other sanctions relief to the formal financial system and not in cash,
then why did they send the $1.7 billion in cash? The administration can't
have it both ways. Either they basically ceded to Iranian demands, gave cash
in a unique payment in order to get value in return, in this case I believe
hostages, in which case it was a ransom, or the administration has been
engaged in probably the biggest airlift of cash in the US history to a state
sponsor of terrorism.
|
|
Liz MacDonald:
|
Mark Dubowitz, he's with the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies, testifying for Congress of more detail about the growing amounts
given to Iran. Thank you Mark for your time. Appreciate it...
For more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubttVxWBoJs
|
No comments:
Post a Comment