A top aide to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign says President Obama wants to conceal his administration’s $400 million payment to Iran.
“The Obama administration is now engaged in a cover-up of their fly-by-night untraceable cash airlift to Iran, the world’s leading state-sponsor of terrorism,” senior policy adviser Stephen Miller said in a statement late Thursday.
{mosads}“President Obama’s refusal to acknowledge that these funds will end up being used to subsidize terror is shameful — and Hillary Clinton’s support for the president’s actions are a national disgrace.”
Miller said the controversial transaction is the latest failure abroad that Obama shares with Clinton, the former secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee.
“The Obama-Clinton foreign policy gave rise to the [Islamic State in Iraq and Syria], made Iran flush with cash and is now admitting vast numbers of refugees and migrants into the United States from some of the most volatile regions of the world,” he said.
“[That’s] including more than 100,000 migrants annually from the Middle East, plus they’re now on track to hit their target of 10,000 Syrian refugees through dangerously expediting their admission (which Hillary Clinton wants to increase by 550 percent).”
Miller added that the Obama administration’s secrecy is predictable after Clinton’s tenure as one of its Cabinet members.
“But none of this is surprising from an administration that allowed its secretary of State to threaten the country with a private email server, delete her records, and lie about it to us all.”
Obama earlier Thursday rebuked critics who say the $400 million transfer to Iran earlier this year constitutes a ransom.
“This wasn’t some nefarious deal,” he said at the Pentagon. “We do not pay ransom for hostages. And the notion that we would start now, in this high-profile way … defies logic.”
Reports emerged late Tuesday the Obama administration transferred $400 million to Iran last January aboard an unmarked cargo place.
The transaction — which occurred mainly in foreign cash — is part of a settlement negotiated between the two countries over an arms deal made before the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Trump, the GOP’s presidential nominee, said Wednesday the move is an “insane” ransom for four American prisoners released from Iran around the same time.