Cotton demands White House documents on Iran sanctions relief

A Republican senator is asking for all documents related to the Obama administration’s controversial January decision to support lifting sanctions on two Iranian banks.

{mosads}Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) in a Thursday letter asked the State Department and Department of the Treasury to release records regarding Bank Sepah and subsidiary Bank Sepah International’s release from United Nations sanctions. 

Republicans have accused the administration of paying a “ransom” after the U.S. paid Iran $1.7 billion in cash to settle a decades-old lawsuit soon after a prisoner swap. 

The White House and administration officials countered that the prisoner release, settlement and sanction relief were part of several parallel diplomatic efforts. 

In his letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and Secretary of State John Kerry, Cotton wrote the sanctions relief “will create a strong incentive for Iran and other malign actors around the world to capture and detain Americans for use as bargaining chips.”

Both banks were sanctioned by the Treasury Department in 2007 for financing Iran’s ballistic missile program. The U.S. lifted those sanctions through the 2015 deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program. 

To help secure the release of several American prisoners in Iran, the U.S. agreed in January not to block the U.N. from lifting its own sanctions on the banks.

Cotton said the sanctions relief could have violated the deal, which he and every Republican senator voted against last September.

“It may come as an unpleasant surprise to [deal supporters] that the text of the agreement is not in fact binding and may change to suit the desires of Iran’s ayatollahs,” wrote Cotton.