{"id":1454859,"date":"2022-04-27T05:15:28","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T09:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1454859"},"modified":"2022-04-27T05:15:31","modified_gmt":"2022-04-27T09:15:31","slug":"lawmakers-to-biden-no-more-secret-negotiations-with-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lawmakers-to-biden-no-more-secret-negotiations-with-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers to Biden: No More Secret Negotiations With Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Flawmakers-to-biden-no-more-secret-negotiations-with-iran%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1454859&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/\">National Security<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">GOP demands Biden admin brief American public on contested deal<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\"><figcaption class=\"absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75\">\n\t\t\t\tBiden U.S.-Iran envoy Robert Malley and Obama administration officials negotiate the 2015 Iran nuclear deal \/ Getty Images\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/adam-kredo\/\" title=\"Posts by Adam Kredo\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Adam Kredo<\/a> \u2022 April 27, 2022 4:59 am<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Republican lawmakers in Congress are fed up with the Biden administration&#8217;s secret diplomacy with Iran and refusal to inform the American public about what concessions will be granted to the world&#8217;s foremost sponsor of terrorism as part of a new nuclear deal.<\/p>\n<p>With negotiations stuck in their final stage amid Iran&#8217;s demands that all U.S. sanctions be lifted on its chief terrorist outfit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Republican foreign policy leaders are pressing top Biden administration officials to publicly brief Congress on the state of diplomatic talks.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With uncertainty surrounding the status of the negotiation, the American people have a right to know what their diplomats agreed to in Vienna, what alternatives your administration is considering, and how you intend to address the wider range of threats from Iran\u2014including its increasingly dangerous missile and drone programs and taking American hostages,&#8221; a group of Republican lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees wrote in a letter sent on Wednesday to the White House and obtained exclusively by the <em>Washington <\/em><em>Free Beacon<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The secrecy surrounding the talks\u2014and Iran&#8217;s demands for billions of dollars in sanctions relief that will likely fund its regional terrorism enterprise\u2014are unacceptable and hint that the Biden administration is poised to enter a deal that is weaker than the original 2015 accord, according to Republican representatives Claudia Tenney (N.Y.), Mar\u00eda Elvira Salazar (Fla.), Greg Steube (Fla.), Ronny Jackson (Texas), and Don Bacon (Neb.).<\/p>\n<p>During more than a year of negotiations, the Biden administration has refused to brief Congress in an open setting. Biden administration officials, including U.S.-Iran envoy Robert Malley, have only consented to classified briefings, unlike the Obama administration, which discussed the talks openly with lawmakers and the public. Classified briefings on the deal\u2014which came after lawmakers from both parties chastised the administration for cutting Congress out of the negotiations\u2014are no longer tolerable, Tenney and her colleagues say.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To date only closed-door classified briefings have been provided to Congress. This is a start, but it is not enough. Special Envoy Robert Malley works for the American people, and he should answer to them,&#8221; they wrote. &#8220;On behalf of the American people, we therefore urge you to ask these senior officials to appear before a public hearing to provide crucial transparency about your plans and efforts to prevent a nuclear Iran.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Since negotiations began last year, following the Trump administration&#8217;s 2018 withdrawal from the nuclear accord, Iran has orchestrated scores of terror attacks on U.S. outposts, citizens, and allies in the region. Still, the Biden administration is considering lifting the U.S. terror designation on the IRGC, which is responsible for many of these attacks and has killed hundreds of Americans.<\/p>\n<p>It has become clear in recent months that the Biden administration stopped enforcing U.S. sanctions on Iran&#8217;s oil exports, providing the hardline regime with billions of dollars in revenue before a deal is done. China, for instance, has <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/iranian-ghost-armada-ferries-22-billion-worth-of-illicit-oil-to-china\/\">imported $22 billion<\/a> worth of sanctioned Iranian crude oil since President Joe Biden took office.<\/p>\n<p>The United States also dropped some nuclear sanctions, allowing countries like China and Russia to build out portions of Tehran&#8217;s nuclear infrastructure\u2014a move that was seen as a preemptive concession to Iran to cajole it into accepting a new deal.<\/p>\n<p>Much of the Biden administration&#8217;s diplomacy remains a secret and is taking place behind closed doors in Vienna, where Russia is serving as the United States&#8217; top interlocutor even as it wages an unprovoked war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>The State Department has told the <em>Free Beacon<\/em> it refuses to &#8220;negotiate in public&#8221; and is keeping the terms of a deal private until the deal is announced. During a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foreign.senate.gov\/hearings\/watch?hearingid=A16C0913-5056-A066-6018-5F511F77D572\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">declined<\/a> a senator&#8217;s request to have Malley testify publicly about the deal, infuriating GOP officials present at the hearing, according to sources who spoke to the <em>Free Beacon<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>A public briefing on the deal is &#8220;even more pressing, given the serious U.S. national security risks of a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran and recent Iranian attacks against U.S. targets in Iraq,&#8221; the Republican lawmakers write, referring to the 2015 nuclear accord by its official acronym. &#8220;We call upon your administration to uphold its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foreign.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/01%2019%202021%20Nominations%20--%20Blinken%20Part%201.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">commitments<\/a> and testify openly on negotiations in front of the full House Foreign Affairs Committee immediately, before any deal is agreed in Vienna or talks collapse.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"View POTUS Iran Public Hearing Letter on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/571778010\/POTUS-Iran-Public-Hearing-Letter#from_embed\">POTUS Iran Public Hearing Letter<\/a> by <a title=\"View Washington Free Beacon&#039;s profile on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/publisher\/247263517\/Washington-Free-Beacon#from_embed\">Washington Free Beacon<\/a> on Scribd<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>National Security GOP demands Biden admin brief American public on contested deal  Biden U.S.-Iran envoy Robert Malley and Obama administration officials negotiate the 2015 Iran nuclear deal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1454859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1454859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1454859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1454859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1454859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1454859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1454859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}