Did Donald Trump Promise Iran $20 Billion? If So—Is that Treason?

On Earth One, no—it’s Iran’s money, after all. But on MAGA Earth, if Biden or Obama had done it …

Last Friday morning, Axios published a scoop about the Trump administration’s negotiations with Iran. The administration, according to four sources, wants Iran to give up its stockpile of enriched uranium, of which it possesses about 2.2 tons in various underground facilities. In return, the United States would release to Iran $20 billion in frozen funds.

What?! It’s a staggering sum of money. And if all the details were accurate, it would represent an even more staggering negotiating win for Iran because Axios also reported that the Trump team opened their bidding at $6 billion; Iran wanted $27 billion. You don’t need to have gone to Wharton to know that 20 is a hell of a lot closer to 27 than it is to 6. The art of the deal indeed.

But here’s what makes the idea of this—and Trump denied the report, whatever that’s worth—particularly galling. As part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, negotiated between Iran, the United States, and five other nations under President Barack Obama, the United States agreed to release $1.7 billion in frozen Iranian funds. This was part of a cache of $100 billion or more that belongs to Iran but was frozen in international banks (most of them outside the United States) after the 1979 revolution and during subsequent impositions of sanctions. Fully $1.3 billion of the Obama-approved payment was interest.

You’ll recall how apoplectic with rage Trump and the entire right wing were about that payment. It was ransom! (Four American hostages were released.) It would finance terrorism across the region! Why, it was tantamount to treason! Sure enough, one writer for Front Page Magazine (David Horowitz’s outfit) argued: “In a sane political environment, Barack Obama would be........

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