Senate leaders react to reports that Obama administration paid $400 million to Iran

U.S. Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Richard Burr (R-NC) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) reacted on Wednesday to reports that the Obama administration paid Iran $400 million in January.

The Obama administration allegedly orchestrated a secret airlift of $400 million in cash to Iran that coincided with the release of four Americans that had been detained in Tehran, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The report provides “further evidence,” Blunt said, that the secret payment was “nothing less than a ransom payment made to a terrorist regime.”

“The administration claims that the payment had nothing to do with the release of the hostages, and was made as part of an unrelated $1.7 billion settlement for a decades-old claim stemming from a foreign military sale prior to the fall of the Shah,” Blunt said. “The timing of the cash transfer clearly suggests otherwise. By giving in to the ransom demands of a terrorist regime, the administration has made all Americans, and our allies, less safe.”

Ernst said that it was “incredibly concerning” that the administration gave $400 million to Iran at the same time that the Iranian government was releasing four detainees.

“The timing of this cash transfer is too coincidental and is another sign that this administration is willing to accommodate people who wish us harm,” Ernst said. “Not only have they taken the sanctions off of Iran’s radical revolutionary Islamic regime which funds terrorists all around the world and calls for the destruction of both the United States and our closest ally Israel, the administration now reportedly provides a cash incentive to hold American citizens hostage.”

Iran cannot be trusted, Ernst concluded, and the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal is a “misguided” effort that will put Iran on the path toward acquiring nuclear weapons.

“This has been and will continue to be a bad deal for the United States,” Burr said. “The administration, including President Obama and Secretary Clinton, is responsible for leading America into a deal that will arm Iran, the number one state sponsor of terrorism.”