U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), have penned a letter addressed to President Biden, alleging the violation of a 2015 law designed to prohibit the U.S. president from unilaterally negotiating with Iran regarding its nuclear program. The lawmakers accuse the President of engaging in such negotiations with the regime in Tehran and deliberately keeping Congress in the dark.
According to the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, all negotiations and agreements involving Iran's nuclear program must be subject to Congressional approval.
Dated August 21, the letter voices "significant concern" that any agreement or understanding with Iran which fails to "permanently and completely halt Iran’s nuclear enrichment" could pose a direct threat to U.S. national security. The letter points out the escalating levels of Iranian uranium enrichment disclosed this year by the IAEA.
The trio of Republicans further state in their letter that the Biden administration is not only pursuing a nuclear understanding with Iran but also linking it to the hostage release arrangement negotiated earlier this month.
In that agreement, five individuals with dual U.S.-Iranian citizenship were released to house arrest. This was reportedly facilitated by unfreezing $6 billion of Iran's assets in South Korea.
The Biden administration has been working to institute a new nuclear agreement with the regime in Iran after the previous 2015 accord, negotiated by President Obama was then scrapped by the Trump administration in May of 2018.
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