WASHINGTON — The U.S. House has passed a bill to outlaw cash payments to Iran in a rebuke of the Obama administration’s decision to send Tehran what Republicans charge was “ransom” on the same day American prisoners were released.
The 254-to-163 vote, which fell nearly along party lines, comes as lawmakers are making a final push toward the campaign trail, where Republicans bet their wholesale rejection of President Barack Obama’s deals with Iran will play big with voters.
Thursday’s measure is just the latest in a series of steps Republican House leaders have taken to criticize the administration’s pursuit of the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran opposed by their members, as well as the circumstances surrounding its implementation.
The GOP has focused on a $400 million cash payment the United States sent to Iran on the same day in January that the deal was implemented and several American prisoners, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, were released.
The money was to settle Iran’s claim before an international tribunal that the United States owed it $400 million, plus interest, in funds set aside to pay for military weapons that were never delivered following the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
Earlier this month, administration officials said in a closed congressional briefing that they had also paid $1.3 billion of interest in two additional cash transactions sent to Iran on Jan. 22 and Feb. 5, according to aides present.
Republican leaders in Congress and on the campaign trail — including House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump — have seized on the simultaneous timing of the $400 million payment and the release of prisoners, arguing that makes it clear that the cash payments were a “ransom.”
State Department officials insist the payments were delayed to ensure they would have “leverage” to secure the release of the prisoners.
The Obama administration has already threatened to veto the measure.