Chuck Schumer and the Flopping Fish

Earlier this week the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a report detailing how the Obama administration secretly worked to provide Iran with the ability to circumvent sanctions and obtain access to the U.S. financial system. While these actions may have been strictly legal, they do seem to violate the intent of the sanctions.

The report details how the Obama administration quietly put together a one time permit on February 24, 2016 issued through the Department of Treasury allowing Bank Muscat to convert $5.7 billion from Omani rials first to American dollars and then to euros. The plan eventually failed when no U.S. banks would agree to aid with the transaction siting the fear of violating sanctions and the fear of public fallout if it were known that they were doing business with Iran.

After questions from Senators Marco Rubio and Mark Kirk to the Treasury Department about the possibility of the administration assisting Iran, in June of 2016 the Treasury Department issued this statement:

To be clear, the U.S. Department of Treasury is not working on behalf of Iran to enable Iranian access to U.S. dollars elsewhere in the international financial system, nor are we assisting Iran in gaining access to dollar payment systems outside the U.S. financial system. The Administration has not been and is not planning to grant Iran access to
the U.S. financial system.

Being polite one would call this statement misleading, to be more accurate it should be called a lie.

However, my particular interest is in hearing any response from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, so far I have found nothing. On August 6, 2015 Senator Schumer released My Position on the Iran Deal prior to a vote to disapprove the Iran nuclear deal. To be honest, after reading it I was impressed with Senator Schumer. I had no idea that he could take a set of individual concerns and come up with a solid position that was actually supported by the concerns. My view of Senator Schumer is that of a knee jerk reaction opposing anything proposed by the opposing party. I am quiet sure if Senator Schumer became a Republican he would react with the same fervor against anything from the Democratic party. I am also quiet sure that if Senator Schumer put as much thought and logic into all of his decisions as he did on his Iran Deal decision he would be a great asset to this country. As he is now, he is no asset.

In his press release on the Iran Deal, Senator Schumer pointed out that in the first 10 years of the agreement one of the major problems was validating compliance to the agreement with "anywhere, anytime" inspections. The deal assured Iran 24 hour notice before an inspection could take place allowing Iran the ability to "clean up" any areas that might show non compliance with the deal. Another of the reasons Senator Schumer gave for opposing the Iran Deal is the actions of Iran away from the nuclear aspects, it is their support and funding of terrorism and other violence. He pointed out that the Iran Deal would provide Iran $50 billion dollars, at least part of which in his words would be used "to create even more trouble in the Middle East, and, perhaps, beyond".

When President Trump decided to withdraw from the Iran Deal, Senator Schumer suddenly flipped his commitment. Now he supports staying in the Iran Deal. From rollcall.com in the article 7 Lawmakers Who Opposed Iran Deal and Trump’s Decision to Withdraw From It Senator Schumer's position now is:

“There are no reports that Iran has violated the agreement and to me, the greatest worries from Iran are not right now the nuclear side but rather what they’re doing in Syria, what they’re doing to arm Hezbollah with rockets, what they’re doing with ICBMs,” the New York Democrat told reporters Tuesday. “To me, the right thing to do would have been to try and come up with our allies with an agreement on those issues and let the nuclear part of this continue as is because it’s not being violated in any way.”

Senator Schumer has abandoned his concerns about the inability to perform satisfactory inspection to confirm compliance with the deal and the concern that the Iran Deal provides money for Iran to continue funding terrorism and violence in the middle east. Probably his initial disagreement with the deal was nothing more than a political stunt knowing the vote was mostly symbolic and would not have stopped the Obama administration. If Senator Schumer truly had changed his mind the logical thing to have done would be to pull out his old press release and walk through his initial concerns explaining why these were no longer relevant.

My interest is how Senator Schumer react now with the knowledge the Obama administration mislead (OK, lied to) congress and the American public when trying to provide Iran access to money held in Bank Muscat. I wonder if Senator Schumer will continue to act like a fish suddenly plucked from the water and dropped on the bank, flopping around trying to get back to a more comfortable place.

This is a great opportunity for the Democratic party to start helping to address some of the questionable activities that took place during the Obama administration. While those on the extreme left would be upset, it is my assertion that any support lost to them from the extreme left would be more than made up for from those near the center of the political spectrum.