Biden is Evading the Law with His Secret Iran Deal
By: Senator Bill Hagerty
A note from Morgan:
Every American should pay attention to the $6 billion ransom the Biden Team is reportedly giving to Iran. Worse, it appears to be linked with a secret and illegal nuclear deal with the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. I am honored to feature a piece written by my own Tennessee Senator. United States Senator Bill Hagerty was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2020 and is currently serving his first term representing the state of Tennessee. His committee assignments include: U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs; U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations; and the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules & Administration. Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Hagerty served as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, the world’s third-largest economy and America’s closest ally in the region.
As if imperiling the security of American personnel and our partners in the Middle East wasn’t bad enough, President Biden’s Administration is doing so by going to unprecedented lengths to disregard the U.S. Constitution and federal law.
According to many recent news reports, the Biden Administration has been negotiating an unwritten agreement with Iran in which the United States would relieve billions of dollars of sanctions on Iran in return for the Iranian regime’s promises to curb the expansion of its nuclear weapons program, roll back its support for terrorist proxy attacks on U.S. government personnel in the region, and release American hostages.
Yet this reported unwritten agreement does nothing to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and puts U.S. citizens and military personnel at risk. For example, it allows Iran to keep its nuclear infrastructure and centrifuges intact while only capping Iran’s uranium enrichment at 60 percent purity—an enrichment level that represents 99 percent of the effort required to produce military-grade high enriched uranium. Furthermore, rewarding hostage-taking by paying six billion dollars for the potential release of five American hostages, as the Biden Administration recently did as one element of this unwritten agreement, only incentivizes more hostage-taking of U.S. citizens abroad, both by Iran and by our other adversaries.
And because money is fungible, the sanctions relief frees up billions of dollars for Iran’s missile and nuclear programs, as well as its terrorist proxies that destabilize the Middle East and threaten U.S. military personnel. Already, the Biden Administration’s lax enforcement of existing U.S sanctions on Iranian oil exports has caused Iranian oil revenues to surge. The additional billions of dollars in sanctions relief under this unwritten agreement not only bail out—and thereby sustain—Iran’s regime economically, but this multi-billion-dollar inflow bankrolls both terrorism abroad and repression within Iran. The Biden Administration is making the same mistake that the Obama Administration made—sanctions relief does not prevent Iran from progressing towards a nuclear weapon; it only helps Iran pay for it.
Resuscitating the original Obama-era deal despite its catastrophic consequences is a vanity project—team Biden would rather be wrong than admit the original deal was based on a false premise.
When President Obama pursued the original Iran nuclear deal, his Administration blatantly disregarded its constitutional duty to submit the agreement as a treaty requiring the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate. In response, Congress passed a law known as the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, or INARA, by a vote of 99-1. In brief, the INARA law says that if the United States and Iran make any agreement related to Iran’s nuclear program, the White House must submit it for congressional review and potential up-or-down votes in the Senate and House of Representatives. The nearly unanimous bipartisan passage of INARA by the Senate reflected senators’ bipartisan frustration that the Executive Branch was ignoring the Constitution and trying to circumvent Congress on such an important matter.
If recent reports are accurate, the Biden Administration is intentionally avoiding calling its unfolding agreement with Iran an official “agreement” in an effort to again sidestep congressional approval required under INARA. In early 2021, I was concerned that this might happen, so I introduced the Iran Sanctions Relief Review Act, or ISRRA, in the 117th Congress and re-introduced it in the 118th Congress. As a backstop to INARA, my bill requires congressional review and an up-or-down vote on any presidential waiver of Iran sanctions—whether labeled an “agreement” or not. This is important because any new agreement related to Iran’s nuclear program will require, once again, the Executive Branch to waive Iran sanctions, as it has already begun to do. In other words, my bill protects the role of Congress if the Executive Branch attempts to circumvent INARA’s congressional review by claiming the new agreement isn’t an agreement. Already this year, 34 Senators have co-sponsored my legislation, sending a clear message to President Biden that we could deny him the requisite 67 Senate votes to approve the flawed Iran deal or any related agreement properly submitted to the Senate as a treaty. Augmenting our support, a companion bill in the House has already passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee in a bipartisan fashion.
To be clear, a President that actually respects the Constitution would submit any nuclear agreement with Iran as a treaty. Short of that, even informal and unwritten agreements still trigger the legal requirements for congressional review in INARA. But since the Biden Administration is blatantly attempting to evade INARA’s legal requirements for congressional review, my bill is a necessary insurance policy that all members of Congress—irrespective of party—should support if they take their roles seriously.
The Trump Administration was right to withdraw from the fatally flawed Iran nuclear deal in May 2018. The Biden Administration’s unfolding behind-closed-doors agreement to provide Iran’s terrorist regime with sanctions relief in order to help it pay for a nuclear weapon creates a grave security threat for the United States and our partners in the Middle East. President Biden’s attempt to evade his legal obligation to submit such an understanding with Iran for congressional review is unfortunately not surprising given its indefensibility, but nevertheless unconscionable.