WASHINGTON (CN) — Incensed by reports that the Biden administration has finalized a deal with Iran to free a group of U.S. citizens held captive by the regime, congressional Republicans doubled down on accusations Wednesday that the White House is inadvertently funding Tehran’s ambitions.
The GOP’s ire comes after the Biden administration announced Monday that it had reached an agreement with Iran to release five American detainees, some of whom have been held in the country for nearly a decade. In return, the State Department issued a sanctions waiver that would allow the transfer of roughly $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets, composed of unpaid South Korean oil dues, to a Qatari bank.
While the White House has firmly held that the cash released under the deal will be closely monitored and can only be used by Tehran for humanitarian aid, Republican lawmakers were quick to heap consternation on President Biden for what they view as a gift to the regime.
Alabama Senator Katie Boyd Britt on Monday called the agreement “shameful” and dinged the administration for “handing $6 billion to the largest state sponsor of terrorism” on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa agreed, calling the move “a windfall for regime aggression.”
The GOP continued its assault on the prisoner swap during a hearing Wednesday in the House Committee on Oversight.
“While I believe it is imperative that we bring home every wrongfully detained American citizen abroad, it is also crucial that the increase in ransom payments made by the U.S. government does not incentivize hostile nations like Iran to continue to kidnap American citizens,” said Wisconsin Republican Glenn Grothman, who chairs the panel’s national security and foreign affairs subcommittee.
Grothman and the other GOP lawmakers on the panel sought to frame the administration’s prisoner swap as part of what they see as opaque foreign policy. “The administration has negotiated in secret and has failed to be transparent with Congress or the American people in negotiations with the Iranian regime,” the Wisconsin congressman said.
Representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana piled on, pointing to comments made by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi during an interview with NBC News on Tuesday, during which the regime leader said it would spend the unfrozen funds however it pleased.
“It’s insane to think that you can do a deal with these people,” Higgins said. “The regime is horrific and aligned against all peaceful world interests, and when the Biden administration does business with them, they’re compliant with that regime’s agenda.”
Among the witnesses invited to testify Wednesday was Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at research nonprofit Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who suggested that the White House’s deal with Iran would make it more difficult to secure the release of other Americans detained elsewhere in the world.
“It defies logic to believe that the United States is paying $6 billion for five people,” Goldberg said. “It would be a historic hostage ransom payment,” he added, and it would impose “a huge cost” on Americans living abroad.
“If you’re Evan Gershkovich, sitting in a Russian prison today, the price on your head just went way up,” said Goldberg, alluding to Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich who has been held for months by Moscow on questionable espionage charges.
Barbara Slavin, a former journalist and a fellow at foreign policy nonprofit the Stimson Center, pushed back on the GOP line, saying she was “amused” to hear Republicans repeat Tehran’s talking points.
“Opponents of the deal quote Iranian sources that they previously discounted as somehow credible,” she observed. “Iranian officials and government-owned media may say that they can spend this money any way they like, but that’s a lie.”
Unfreezing Iranian assets in exchange for detained U.S. citizens is not tantamount to appeasement, Slavin argued. “Indeed, one could argue that these funds were frozen illegally as a result of the Trump administration’s violation of an internationally approved agreement,” she said, alluding to former President Trump’s move to pull the U.S. out of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an agreement aimed at preventing Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.
California Congressman Robert Garcia, the subcommittee’s ranking member, defended the White House’s calculus.
“I’m concerned that many voiced in Congress are irresponsibly trying to block or pre-judge diplomacy, regardless of its merits, to score political points,” Garcia said. “President Biden is securing the release of captured Americans, which should be a bipartisan priority for any administration.”
Garcia also questioned the timing of Wednesday’s hearing arguing that Republicans could put the five detainees, who have not yet been released into U.S. custody, in a precarious situation.
New York Democrat Dan Goldman sought to stake out a more bipartisan approach, saying that negotiating with Iran is “not as simple as either maximum pressure or fall-on-your-sword diplomacy.”
“I think we would all benefit from thinking hard about more bipartisan work on this, rather than playing the blame game as to whether it was Biden or Trump,” Goldman said.
Freshman Congressman Max Frost expressed frustration with Republicans for their opposition to the prisoner swap agreement, saying his colleagues were “upset at the administration for using diplomacy to help free Americans who have been unjustly detained by foreign regimes.”
Frost framed the GOP’s outrage as a political crusade against President Biden, but also made an appeal for bipartisanship. “I hope that we can get past all of the politics of this and agree that bringing [the detainees] home was the right thing to do.”
Slavin, for her part, agreed.
“When these five Americans finally land on U.S. soil, all Americans should cheer,” she said. “There are no Republican or Democratic hostages, there are only Americans.”
Meanwhile, the White House Wednesday defended its deal, fighting off notions that it was a ransom payment.
John Kirby, coordinator of strategic communications for the National Security Council, told reporters that once the money is in accounts in Qatar, Iran must make requests for withdrawals. Those requests will be reviewed, and the funds would be distributed through “vendors we trust” to ensure humanitarian needs reach the Iranian people, he said.
“It’s not a blank check. They don’t get to spend it any way they want,” Kirby said. “The Iranian people will be the beneficiaries of these funds, not the regime.”
The White House official also dismissed claims that the agreement would encourage “bad actors” to detain Americans, saying countries like Iran “don’t need any incentive to continue to look for ways to wrongfully detain Americans.”
“They’ve been participating in bad behavior for a long, long time and we continue to put pressure on them in ways the previous administration chose not to do,” Kirby said.
Courthouse News reporter Nolan Stout contributed to this report.
Follow @BenjaminSWeiss
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