Obama
Admin Hiding Secret Hostage Docs Signed with Iranian Intel Officials
By Adam Kredo
Washington Free Beacon
October 5, 2016
Key documents relating to the Obama administration’s
secret negotiations with Iran, including a $1.7 billion cash payment, are being
stored at a highly secure site on Capitol Hill, preventing the public and many
in Congress from accessing them, according to multiple sources who described the
situation to the Washington Free Beacon.
The documents are not technically classified but are being
kept in a “secure reading space” where the majority of congressional
officials cannot access them. Those cleared are forced to relinquish their
cellular devices and are barred from taking notes, undermining the ability of
staffers to brief their lawmakers on the contents, according to the sources.
Sources further disclosed that joint U.S.-Iranian
signatures across the three documents add up to a package deal between
Washington and Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, the country’s internal spy
agency. Sources familiar with a closed-door January briefing by senior
Obama administration officials told the Free Beacon they were informed the
United States negotiated with “the Iranian intelligence apparatus.”
The terms of the arrangement—which was signed by Special
Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk—had Iran releasing several U.S. hostages and
obligated Washington to pay Tehran $1.7 billion in cash, removed international
sanctions on a key financial node of Iran’s ballistic missile program, and
dropped charges against 21 Iranian operatives linked to terrorism.
“There are three of them [agreements], and one
specifically relates to the $1.7 billion [payment] and is a commitment of the
U.S. to make arrangements to transfer the money,” said one congressional official
familiar with the agreements.
A second document “lays out the commitments regarding
Iranians that the U.S. was going to pardon, as well as the release of
[imprisoned] Americans,” the source explained.
A third document “relates to assurances” the United
States would allow international sanctions to be dropped on Iran’s Bank Sepah,
a bank the Treasury Department described in
2007 as the “linchpin of Iran’s missile procurement.”
Multiple sources told the Free Beacon all three
documents are part of one package deal. Each document was initially dated Jan.
16, but that was subsequently “crossed out and the 17th was scribbled in,”
according one congressional source who spoke to the Free Beacon.
“They were all signed at the same time and ties it to the
hostage release,” the source said. It further debunks claims made for months
by the Obama administration that the negotiations over each concession were kept
separate.
A second senior congressional source familiar with the
contents of these secret documents told theFree Beacon that they provide
proof that each of these three concessions to Iran was bound up in the hostage
release.
“If it looks like ransom and sounds like ransom, it’s
probably ransom,” the source said. “Why else would Brett McGurk deal with
his Iranian counterparts and sign agreements on all these seemingly unrelated
issues on the same day and in the same place if they weren’t connected?”
A third senior congressional official told the Free
Beacon that officials were never notified by the Obama administration that
these documents were partially being made available. The source speculated the
administration did this to avoid rigorous oversight of its diplomacy with Iran.
“The State Department knows that its Iran policy is
embarrassing and often semi-illegal, so it hides documents related to Iran,”
the official said. “State delays publication, refuses to answer questions, and
puts extra restrictions preventing the Hill from even accessing the
materials.”
The handling of these documents is similar to the Iran deal
itself, which the Free Beacon first
disclosed could only be viewed by congressional officials in a highly
classified manner.
The Free Beacon disclosed on
Tuesday that the administration misled journalists and lawmakers for more than
nine months about a secret agreement lifting international sanctions on Bank
Sepah.
A State Department official declined to provide the Free
Beacon with the name and affiliation of the Iranian official or officials
who took part in negotiations with McGurk. The State Department also would not
provide information about the process by which Congress can view these
documents.
“As part of the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action] negotiations, the United States made the determination that it would
remove Bank Sepah from our Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons
List (SDN List) on Implementation Day,” the State Department official told the Free
Beacon.
“In general, we are committed to ensuring that Congress
has documents and information it may need to conduct effective oversight, and
have transmitted these in a fashion that both protects sensitive information
while giving all Members the ability to review them,” the official said.