A prisoner swap between the United States and Iran that was criticized when it was announced last month is in for especially harsh scrutiny now.
The Biden administration defended the deal, which involved swapping five prisoners from each side as well as the unfreezing of $6 billion in Iranian assets, when questioned by the Washington Examiner at Tuesday's White House press briefing.
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"The United States does not regret bringing home American citizens who have been unjustly detained abroad," national security adviser Jake Sullivan told the Washington Examiner. "As I said before, the president has no higher priority than to get Americans home."
Iran-backed Hamas on Saturday targeted Israel, leaving an estimated 1,000 Israelis dead and 3,400 injured. At least 14 Americans have been killed as well. Palestinian authorities say 830 people have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank since Israel's retaliatory airstrikes, with the combined death toll topping 1,800.
Sullivan and other administration officials have repeatedly stressed that none of the money has been spent without commenting directly on whether they will consider refreezing it.
"Not a single dollar from that account has actually been spent to date." Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday. "Iran has unfortunately always used and focused its funds on supporting terrorism, on supporting groups like Hamas, and it's done that when there have been sanctions."
That's not flying with congressional Republicans. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) called for an investigation into what he describes as a ransom payment.
"From the Biden administration’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal to its $6 billion ransom payment to Iran, President Biden’s policies have led to turmoil in the region," Comer said. "Congress has a duty to hold the Biden administration accountable for its disastrous foreign policies and to conduct oversight of U.S. taxpayer dollars used for foreign aid."
GOP presidential campaigns jumped in as well.
“The Iranian regime hates us,” former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley said in Iowa on Monday. “You don’t give money to a regime that hates America.”
Former President Donald Trump promised during a New Hampshire rally to "cut off the money to Palestinian terrorists on Day One and reimpose the travel ban on terror-afflicted countries."
It's not clear just how involved Iran was in the attacks. Sullivan acknowledged Tuesday that Iran has long funded Hamas and has communicated with militant leaders but said that the U.S. does not believe the Iranian government authorized or helped plan the Israel attacks.
Republican criticisms tend to focus on the idea of money being fungible so that even if the $6 billion goes to humanitarian efforts, it will allow the regime to divert money that would otherwise go to aid toward other purposes.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has said himself that the money will be spent "wherever we need it," a claim White House officials vehemently deny.
"It’s not fungible. [Raisi is] just wrong. He's just flat-out wrong," National Security Council coordinator John Kirby said in September. "The way this deal is arranged is that the $6 billion, which is Iranian money, will go to a Qatari bank — Qatari National Bank. The Iranians can request withdrawals for it for humanitarian purposes, and the Qataris, and us, will have sufficient oversight into the request itself to validate the request and then to deliver funds appropriate to that request."
Center for National Defense senior fellow Dakota Wood says the White House should refreeze the money.
"It doesn’t matter whether Iran was directly involved in approving the Hamas atrocities in Israel; Iran has made it possible for Hamas to exist and to prosecute its terror campaign against Israel for decades," he said. "Freezing the funds would be a clear message to Iran that the US will no longer tolerate its support of terrorism."
Wood argues there is plenty of time and political will to reverse course — if Biden wants to.
"The U.S. can choose to do anything it believes is important enough to do," Wood said. "There would be ample domestic support within the U.S., and certainly within Congress, to reverse the Biden administration’s foolish and dangerous decision to provide such a huge sum of money to Iran."
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Sullivan, in defending the deal, likened it to the new hostages now in captivity following the weekend attacks.
"Right now, we have Americans who are being held hostage by Hamas and Gaza. That is a high priority," he said. "Bringing those Americans home from Iran was a high priority from Afghanistan, from Venezuela, from other places as well, and we stand by bringing those people home because that is the duty of the commander in chief: to get innocent Americans out of captivity in places that they are being unjustly detained."