{"id":9969,"date":"2023-10-12T06:48:48","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T06:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/12\/republicans-some-dem-house-lawmakers-urge-biden-to-refreeze-6b-in-iranian-assets-amid-hamas-attacks\/"},"modified":"2023-10-12T06:48:48","modified_gmt":"2023-10-12T06:48:48","slug":"republicans-some-dem-house-lawmakers-urge-biden-to-refreeze-6b-in-iranian-assets-amid-hamas-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/12\/republicans-some-dem-house-lawmakers-urge-biden-to-refreeze-6b-in-iranian-assets-amid-hamas-attacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans, some Dem House lawmakers urge Biden to refreeze $6B in Iranian assets amid Hamas attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

EXCLUSIVE: <\/strong>House China Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher led a bipartisan group of nearly 100 House lawmakers on Wednesday to urge President Biden to refreeze the $6 billion in Iranian assets released last month in light of the deadly Hamas terrorist war on Israel.<\/p>\n

Gallagher, R-Wis., led a group of 96 House Republicans and two House Democrats, Reps. Donald Davis, D-N.C., and Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., in sending a letter to Biden. The lawmakers said they \u2018stand ready to work\u2019 with the president and will back up his administration\u2019s \u2018rock solid and unwavering\u2019 support for Israel\u2019s security.<\/p>\n

\u2018Denying the terrorist-sponsoring regime in Tehran access to funds with which it can export chaos is an essential step in this direction,\u2019 they wrote.<\/p>\n

In September, the\u00a0Biden administration\u00a0made a deal with Iran to swap prisoners and release $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds.<\/p>\n

As part of the deal, Iran released five American citizens detained in Iran and the U.S. released five Iranian citizens being held in the U.S. The deal also created a blanket waiver to transfer $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds from South Korea to Qatar without fear of violating U.S. sanctions. Administration officials say the funds can only be used for \u2018humanitarian needs like food and medicine.\u2019<\/p>\n

The unfreezing of the money took place nearly a month before Hamas terrorists launched a massive, deadly attack on Israel over the weekend.<\/p>\n

At least 22 Americans have been killed in the terror attacks. An unknown number of Americans are being held hostage by Hamas, U.S. officials say.<\/p>\n

\u2018Your administration recently released $6 billion in frozen funds to Iran in return for American hostages. Our concern \u2014 a concern that has grown more acute in light of Iran\u2019s support for a terrorist war against Israel that already amounts to the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust \u2014 is that the Iranian regime will use all available financial tools to further fuel this war against Israel, fund other terrorist proxies in the region such as Hezbollah who export Iran\u2019s genocidal terrorism, and accelerate Iran\u2019s nuclear [buildup],\u2019 Gallagher and the group of lawmakers wrote. \u2018Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi put it plainly that the funds would be used \u2018wherever we need it.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

They added, \u2018Iran\u2019s \u2018need\u2019 is Israel\u2019s destruction.\u2019<\/p>\n

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel was \u2018at war\u2019 and promised that the attackers would pay \u2018an unprecedented price.\u2019<\/p>\n

But the lawmakers cited Iran\u2019s supreme leader, Ali Hosseini Khamenei, who stated, \u2018\u2018This cancer [Israel] will definitely be eradicated, God willing, at the hands of the Palestinian people and the resistance forces throughout the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallagher and the lawmakers also pointed to reports of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps\u2019 (IRGC) \u2018involvement in planning and giving the \u2018final go-ahead\u2019 for Hamas\u2019 terrorist war on Israel,\u2019 saying it \u2018demands an immediate response.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Left unaddressed, the Iranian regime\u2019s continued support for terrorist groups and attempts to wipe Israel off the map will only grow more brazen and more destabilizing for the region,\u2019 they wrote.<\/p>\n

Biden administration officials have repeatedly said they have \u2018not seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack.\u2019 However, Gallagher said \u2018senior Hamas and Hezbollah officials claimed that IRGC officers have been working with Hamas since August to prepare for air, land and sea invasions of Israel.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018This, combined with years of Iran providing weapons and training, enabled Hamas to launch thousands of rockets at Israeli civilian targets and invade communities, murdering and maiming hundreds of innocent people,\u2019 Gallagher said.<\/p>\n

Gallagher and lawmakers also pointed to Iran\u2019s United Nation\u2019s mission, which \u2018said the measures Hamas has taken \u2014 which include rape, kidnapping, torture, bombings, and murder \u2014 \u2018constitute a wholly legitimate defense\u2019 and that the regime \u2018emphatically stands in unflinching support of Palestine.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018To prevent Iran from accessing tens of billions of dollars to further subsidize this terrorism, we are requesting that you take immediate action,\u2019 they wrote, demanding the administration start by \u2018freezing the $6 billion provided in exchange for hostages, as well as the $10 billion in released funds based in Iraq, and withhold all waivers, general licenses and specific licenses for the use of such funds.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018In September, the State Department said, \u2018we have the ability to freeze [the released funds] again if we need to,\u2019\u2019 they wrote. \u2018The events of this weekend demonstrate such a necessity.\u2019<\/p>\n

The lawmakers also called on Biden to fully enforce sanctions on Iranian oil exports to China, which, they say, \u2018have been unenforced for months despite China\u2019s crude oil imports from Iran having set a new record.\u2019<\/p>\n

They further demanded that the administration \u2018prevent Iran from accessing any further Special Drawing Rights from the International Monetary Fund, through which they have quick access to $6.7 billion, and blocking the further provision of funds to Iran in upcoming SDR packages.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The letter to the president comes after both Senate Democrats and Republicans have called on\u00a0him to do the same.<\/p>\n

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., posted about his support of freezing the $6 billion in Iranian assets to the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u2018As American intelligence officials continue to investigate the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas, we should review our options to hold Iran accountable for any support they may have provided,\u2019 the senator said. \u2018At a minimum, we should immediately freeze the $6 billion in Iranian assets and explore other financial tools we have at our disposal.\u2019<\/p>\n

U.S. officials have said that \u2018not a dollar\u2019 of the money has been spent, but still, critics argue that the funds can be diverted to other places.<\/p>\n

Iran is a known backer of Hamas and praised the attacks on Israel. The State Department has stated in the past that Iran provides some $100 million a year to Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.<\/p>\n

Fox News\u2019 Adam Shaw, Greg Wehner and Bradford Betz contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Brooke Singman is a Fox News Digital politics reporter. You can reach her at Brooke.Singman@Fox.com or @BrookeSingman on Twitter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EXCLUSIVE: House China Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher led a bipartisan group of nearly 100 House lawmakers on Wednesday to urge President Biden to refreeze the $6 billion in Iranian assets released last month in light of the deadly Hamas terrorist war on Israel. Gallagher, R-Wis., led a group of 96 House Republicans and two House <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9970,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9969","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}