Cotton: ‘Kerry acted like Pontius Pilate’ on Iran

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) blasted the news of “side-deals” between Iran and International Atomic Energy Agency surrounding the international nuclear accord, comparing Secretary of State John Kerry to Pontius Pilate.

{mosads}“The State Department has confirmed finally that these agreements do in fact exist, but they have not told us the contents of those agreements,” Cotton said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“Unless Congress gets the content of those agreements and knows, for example, how the IAEA plans to inspect the Parchin military site, I don’t see how any member of congress can vote for this deal.”

Cotton said that IAEA officials told him that the group had reached two side-deals on how to evaluate Iran’s military site at Parchin, where Iran has been accused of testing nuclear detonators. The senator repeated those accusations on “Morning Joe.”

While the Parchin site may have been a “red-line” for Iran, Cotton accused Kerry of acting like the Roman judge who famously washed his hands in front of the Jews after he sentenced Jesus to death in order to assert that he was not responsible.

“John Kerry acted like Pontius Pilate, he washed his hands, kicked it to the IAEA, knowing that Congress would not get this information unless someone went out to find it,” he said. 

The interview comes a day after National Security Adviser Susan Rice confirmed the existence of the deals but told reporters that the administration is “satisfied with them” and will “share the contents of those briefings in full in a classified session with the Congress.”