Tipsheet

White House Botches Answer to Question About Re-Freezing Iran's $6 Billion

Spencer Brown
Spencer Brown  |  October 10, 2023 4:00 PM

The Biden administration refused to consider the idea of re-freezing the $6 billion released to Iran as part of a deal to exchange prisoners earlier this year, even after explaining how Iran — for years — has aided and facilitated Hamas terrorism.

"You just laid out all the ways that Iran is complicit in [Hamas' barbaric attack on Israel] and facilitated it over years of support for Hamas — is that reason enough to re-freeze the $6 billion that the U.S. helped unlock for them to get in exchange for the prisoners?" asked Fox News Channel's Jacqui Heinrich in Tuesday's White House press briefing.

"We have not yet had a dollar of that $6 billion spent, and I will leave it at that," Biden's National Security Advisor responded, ignoring the actual question in order to avoid answering it. 

"But will you re-freeze it based on this activity that you just laid out, all of the ways that they are complicit in this?" pressed Heinrich of the horrific scenes that have played out around Israel including the beheading of babies in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. "Will you prevent it from getting into their hands?" she questioned. 

Still, Sullivan wasn't having any of the line of questioning from Heinrich. "Let me just reiterate what I said because it's unequivocal: not a dollar of that money has been spent and I will leave it at that," Sullivan said, again refusing to consider her actual question. 

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Heinrich tried one more time, asking whether re-freezing the money is even being considered by the Biden administration, but Sullivan ignored her question and called on another reporter.  

What Sullivan's statement means — even when accepting their premise that Iran hasn't touched the $6 billion yet — is that the Biden administration won't commit to re-freezing the funds freed up for Iran, nor will the Biden administration commit to any action to prevent Iran from having access to the funds in the future even as one of Iran's terrorist subsidiaries carries out a devastating and barbaric attack on Israel.

If, as the Biden administration maintains, Iran hasn't touched the $6 billion yet, why wouldn't Biden now prevent them from using it to either directly support more terrorism or to offset costs and free up other funds for terror sponsorship?

Later in the briefing, Sullivan also refused to say whether or not the Biden administration regrets negotiating with Iran for the $6 billion prisoner swap. Instead of answering the question, Sullivan reframed the question and said "the United States does not regret bringing home American citizens who have been unjustly detained abroad" — without including the fact that doing so required negotiating with the murderous Iranian regime and restoring their access to $6 billion in addition to the exchanged prisoners. 

That Sullivan was unwilling to entertain the idea of re-freezing the funds is somewhat unsurprising given President Biden's remarks earlier on Tuesday. Despite reiterating the United States' support for Israel and its right to self-defense, there was no mention of Iran's work to fund and support Hamas and other terrorist groups seeking to murder Israeli civilians and destroy their country.

As with most of Biden's remarks, the president refused to answer questions from reporters following his remarks and shuffled off while they asked Biden directly whether he would re-freeze the funds released to Iran. 

UPDATE: Following Sullivan's disastrous handling of a straight-forward question from Heinrich, the White House entered clean-up mode and told her "the option to re-freeze the $6 billion has always existed - and still exists."

If that's the case, wouldn't the National Security Advisor know that? And if he did know, why didn't he just say that? Instead of Sullivan answering Heinrich's repeated questions on the topic with one non-answer after another, the White House waited until after the briefing to try explaining itself, a transparent attempt to fix another mess of its own creation.