Obama White House secretly gave Iran access to US financial systems: GOP report
A Senate subcommittee report alleges that the Obama administration secretly sought to give Iran access to U.S. financial systems by sidestepping sanctions kept in place after the 2015 nuclear deal.
The report claims the Obama Treasury Department issued a license to Bank Muscat to authorize "conversion of Iranian assets worth billions of U.S. dollars using the U.S. financial system."
“I think it’s part of a larger fraud of the Iran deal where it was presented as a treaty, but they made an end run around the Senate,” Wall Street Journal editorial board member Bill McGurn told FOX Business on Thursday.
President Donald Trump is calling for an investigation into the allegations outlined in the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report.
"The Obama Administration is now accused of trying to give Iran secret access to the financial system of the United States. This is totally illegal," Trump tweeted Thursday.
Former President Barack Obama once jokingly professed that his administration wasn’t plagued by scandals.
“I didn't have scandals, which seems like it shouldn't be something you brag about…No one in my White House ever got in trouble for screwing up as long as there wasn’t malicious intent behind it,” Obama said in May 2018.
McGurn said scandals are the norm in most administrations, but he finds the Obama administration's dealings with Iran in a category of its own that involve misleading Congress and the public.
“Many of their scandals were either manipulating or going around the rules as in this case,” he said.