Today, GOP candidate Sean Parnell tweeted:
Spare me your fake outrage. @BarackObama & @JoeBiden sent pallets of cash to Iran after they spent decades killing Americans & then allowed for this act of international humiliation.
— Sean Parnell (@SeanParnellUSA) October 10, 2020
I’ll take @realDonaldTrump’s coarse language over the left’s weakness any day. https://t.co/QKxkhZPsGE pic.twitter.com/IA341gVply
Along with some iffy grammar, Sean apparently doesn't do recent history all that well. Case in point, he dutifully parrots Trump's "pallets of cash" fake talking point.
And like most everything else Trump says, it's wrong.
Take a look at this from Reuters:
The United States and Iran on Sunday settled a longstanding claim at the Hague, releasing to Tehran $400 million in funds frozen since 1981 plus $1.3 billion in interest, the State Department said.
The funds were part of a trust fund once used by Iran to purchase military equipment from the United States but which was tied up for decades in litigation at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal. The settlement announcement was made after Tehran released five American detainees in a prisoner swap as a nuclear deal was implemented.
Check the date, Sean. January 15, 2016.
Sean, if you don't like Reuters, there's this from the AP:
- The $1.8 (actually $1.7 billion) was a debt owed to Iran, which bought military equipment from the U.S. that it never received because relations ruptured when the shah was overthrown in 1979.
- The debt was in international arbitration for years. As part of that, Iran paid settlements of more than $2.5 billion to U.S. citizens and businesses.
- $400 million, representing the principal and held in a U.S. government trust fund, was paid in cash and flown to Tehran on a cargo plane, which gave rise to Trump’s dramatic accounts of money stuffed in barrels or boxes and delivered in the dead of night.
Or this from Time:
All told, Tehran was asking The Hague arbitrators (comprising equal numbers of U.S., Iranian and neutral judges) for $10 billion. Fearing they might actually be awarded that much, or something like it, the Obama administration negotiated privately with Tehran, which agreed to settle for $1.7 billion. The $400 million stacked on pallets was the first installment.
And if you're one of those "That's fake news!" fetishists, take a look at this from the Congressional News Service:
On January 17, 2016 (the day after the JCPOA took effect), the United States announced it had settled with Iran for FMS cases involving weaponry the Shah’s government was paying for but that was not completed and delivered to Iran when the Shah fell. Iran deposited its payments into a DoD-managed “Iran FMS Trust Fund,” and, after 1990, the Fund had a balance of about $400 million. In 1990, $200 million was paid from the Fund to Iran to settle some FMS cases. Under the 2016 settlement, the United States sent Iran the $400 million balance in the Fund, plus $1.3 billion in accrued interest, paid from the Department of the Treasury’s “Judgment Fund.” In order not to violate U.S. regulations barring direct U.S. dollar transfers to Iranian banks, the funds were remitted to Iran in late January and early February 2016 in foreign hard currency from the central banks of the Netherlands and of Switzerland.
The money was Iran's Sean. It was being returned to Iran, Sean.
This has been known for years, Sean. The question is, why didn't you know it?
If you're going to continue with your political career you really need to get your history, especially your recent history right. It'll help with your novels.
