Sen. Tom Cotton tells Fox News Digital that he will lead the GOP’s effort to stop Lew’s approval.
Some GOP senators are making it clear that they might not support Jack Lew as ambassador to Israel because of how he dealt with Iran as secretary of the Treasury.
On Wednesday, Lew will have a selection hearing in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In 2018, the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s investigative subcommittee found that Lew “granted a specific licence that authorised a conversion of Iranian assets worth billions of U.S. dollars using the U.S. financial system” while he was secretary of the Treasury under Obama.
The report said that the government tried to move $5.7 billion from U.S. banks to assets in Iran. It said that the Office of Foreign Assets Control in the Treasury “encouraged two U.S. correspondent banks to convert the funds.”
On Monday night, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who is on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Fox News Digital that he will vote against Lew’s approval and will be leading a campaign this week to get other GOP senators to stop the confirmation.
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It’s true that some Democrats say we should properly confirm Jack Lew to show our support for Israel, but I’d say the opposite. We should stop Jack Lew from being nominated to show that our country has a new approach to Iran. Cotton told them.
“Jack Lew, Biden’s choice to be USAMB to Israel, was a key point person in negotiations and the disinformation campaign for Obama’s dangerously flawed deal with Iran,” Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., wrote on X, which used to be Twitter. “The consequences are felt today as Iran — flush w cash due to Biden’s push to revive the deal at any cost — has fueled carnage in Israel.”
“We need to have an ambassador in Israel, but it has to be the right person,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said on X. Rubio is a member of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee.
Cotton told Shannon Bream of Fox News on Sunday, “Absolutely not,” in response to Lew’s claim.
“Jack Lew seems to like Iran and shouldn’t be our ambassador.” “It’s bad for the US,” he said. “Having someone who likes Iran as our ambassador to that country is bad for Israel.” He lied to Congress about helping Iran get around US sanctions. He explained why the Obama administration didn’t use its veto to stop anti-Semitic votes “in the last days of the Obama administration.”
In January 2016, President Obama revealed that $400 million would be sent to Iran in cash. This was part of a larger settlement of $1.7 billion for a long-running disagreement over an arms deal with Iran. The move, which Lew made before the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which ended Iran’s monarchy, caused a lot of attention at the time.
There was a lot of attention on Lew, a Democrat who had been a special assistant to the president in the Bill Clinton administration. During that time, the Wall Street Journal reported that the payment was made with a mix of Swiss and other foreign currencies, and that the money was then sent to Iran on unnamed cargo planes.
When the war started last week, Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement, “Right now, it is as critical as ever that we have a Senate-confirmed ambassador in Israel.”
“That’s why I hope my coworkers will quickly agree that Secretary Jacob J. Lew should be the new U.S. Ambassador to Israel,” he said.
“I’m looking forward to working with my Republican and Democratic colleagues to move quickly on these kinds of steps that show long-term support for the partnership between the U.S. and Israel.” I am also excited to help the administration in its attempts to do the same.
Lawmakers have criticised Iran for helping Hamas attack Israel, saying that a $6 billion deal made with the country last month in exchange for five American prisoners was used to support the attack.
The deal made it possible for Iran’s frozen funds that were held in a South Korean bank to be moved to accounts in Qatar.
The government said that the money could only be used for good causes and that the U.S. would keep an eye on how and when the money is spent. But there was quick doubt about whether those funds could have been used to pay for the attack in Israel after a shock was dropped. A story in the Wall Street Journal said that Iran planned the attack with help from Hamas and Hezbollah.
When Fox News Digital called Lew on Monday night, he refused to say anything.
