House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) said over the weekend that the $6 billion of Iranian assets that the Biden Administration is reportedly set to unfreeze in exchange for five detained Americans will go toward helping Iran finance their “terror operations” and “nuclear bomb aspirations.”
McCaul made the remarks during an interview with Fox News host Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday” while discussing several issues in the Middle East — including funding the Biden Administration is sending to Afghanistan.
The prisoner swap that the administration has reportedly agreed to with Iran also includes freeing Iranian criminals who have been convicted of evading sanctions imposed against the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.
The U.S. will transfer “nearly $6 billion of Iran’s assets in South Korea, putting the funds into an account in the central bank of Qatar,” according to a report from The New York Times. Qatar will control the money and will only let Iran access the funds to pay for “humanitarian purchases,” the sources claimed to the Times.
The Americans will only be allowed to leave once the funds have been transferred to the Qatari account. They will be flown to Qatar’s capital city of Doha since the country was key in negotiating the arrangement.
McCaul said that the idea that the Ayatollah would not have control over the money was ludicrous and that the money would “prop up their proxy war, terror operations, and their nuclear bomb aspirations.”
“They are now starting to talk about the JCPOA all over again, which in my judgment, will lead us down a course to a legal nuclear bomb in Iran,” he said. “Prime Minister Netanyahu came out strongly against this. I think we’re going back to the mistakes of the past.”
“Our special envoy to Iran to negotiate the JCPOA is under investigation for mishandling classified information,” he added. “He has the most sensitive information as our top negotiator to Iran, and to the Ayatollah, now under investigation for mishandling classified information, very troubling story.”
WATCH:
WATCH: House Foreign Affairs Chair @RepMcCaul joined the program to discuss new reporting surrounding the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Tune in! pic.twitter.com/D8zhec3cR7
— Fox News Sunday (@FoxNewsSunday) August 13, 2023