Prohibiting Future Ransom Payments to Iran Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ZELDIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank Chairman Royce and rise in support of his legislation, Prohibiting Future Ransom Payments to Iran Act, which I cosponsored, to prohibit ransom payments to Iran, the largest state sponsor of terror.

Iran calls America the Great Satan and pledges death to America. Iran is illegally test-firing ICBMs. They finance Assad in Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terror groups. Iran recently detained and embarrassed, publicly, U.S. Navy sailors. Iran currently is threatening U.S. Navy warships. Iran leaders do not respect American weakness--they prey upon it--and the U.S. is feeding into it, like the unsigned political commitment otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal. Purchasing Iran's heavy water didn't help. Speaker Ryan has aptly pointed out, Secretary Kerry has been a shill for Iran, as if he is the president of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce.

I am deeply troubled that earlier this year the Obama administration airlifted a cash ransom payment at the exact same moment as the release of four unjustly detained American hostages. Some people blindly loyal to this President will say that this was Iran's money. No, it wasn't. This was a disputed claim for decades, and for very good reason. In the late 1970s, Iran fell behind in their payments under the Foreign Military Sales program. Iran canceled their orders, overtook our Embassy, and then repudiated all foreign obligations.

Not only have we been disputing Iran's claim for $400 million, we had counterclaims against Iran, including one for $817 million. In fact, a Federal law from 2000 details a very specific requirement regarding payments to Iran from the FMS account, which was directly violated by the ransom payment to Iran.

Between the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the 2000 law, U.S. victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism sued the Iranian Government in U.S. court with claims caused by Iran's terrorism. The claims were paid by the U.S. Government. These claims were subrogated to the U.S., meaning that their claims against Iran became the U.S.' claims against Iran.

The 2000 law clearly states that ``no funds shall be paid to Iran, or released to Iran . . . from the Foreign Military Sales Fund, until such subrogated claims have been dealt with to the satisfaction of the United States.''

Yet President Obama paid Iran the full $400 million amount from the FMS fund, plus more than three times that amount in interest, a total of $1.7 billion in cash, in violation of the 2000 law. You can call a ransom payment leverage. But guess what, folks; it is still ransom. And why don't we pay ransom? Because now, with the price paid on American hostages, Iran has now captured new, unjustly imprisoned American hostages.

Passage of this bill is critically important, and I thank Chairman Royce for his unyielding, inspiring leadership on this issue to hold Iran accountable.

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Mr. ZELDIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Kansas for offering this amendment to a very important underlying bill from the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ed Royce.

It is really important to point out, as a matter of policy and what, unfortunately, is very necessary for this Congress to take action on, to make it very clear that we don't pay ransom.

Now, with regard to the $1.7 billion that has been paid to Iran to secure the release of the four Iranian hostages, other terms have been used. The one most often used lately is called ``leverage.''

The fact is, if the money did not arrive immediately, the hostages wouldn't have been released. No money, no hostage release.

Why are we debating as if this wasn't a ransom? If the money didn't show up, $400 million in cash, the hostages wouldn't have been released.

Why do we not put a price on securing the release, a financial price? It is because now more Americans are being unjustly imprisoned by Iran. Mr. Shahini, from California, in Iran visiting his mother, is being held, accused of ``cooperating with hostile governments, actions against national security, and communication with antirevolutionary agents and media.'' This is an American visiting his mom in Iran.

And why do we not pay ransom? Why we do not give money to secure the release of American hostages is that now more Americans have been taken hostage.

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