Experts: $1.7 Billion Cash Payment to Iran May Not Have Been the First

The Obama administration may have facilitated several cash payments to Iran even before its controversial $1.7 billion transfer to the country, potentially putting even more liquid money in the hands of nefarious actors backed by the Islamic Republic, according to testimony presented Thursday at a congressional hearing.

The assessment came hours after the administration reshaped its explanation for paying the $1.7 billion sum via planeloads of cash, secretly flown to Tehran last January and February. President Obama has previously said that the payment had to be made in cash because the United States does "not have a banking relationship with Iran," but administration officials at the hearing supplemented that account, saying that the transfer occurred in cash because Iran demanded "immediate payment" due to "critical economic needs that they had."

The administration's evolving explanation has brought attention to the full range of financial transfers made to Iran stretching back to 2014. Testimony given at Thursday's hearing suggested that, if cash was the only possible means of transfer, those past transactions may also have been performed in cash.

"If there was no mechanism through the formal financial system to send Iran the $1.7 billion in settlement money, the $11.9 billion in [Joint Plan of Action] sanctions relief funds from its oil escrow accounts, and the $20 billion from Iran's total liquid, unencumbered assets following the implementation of the [Iran nuclear deal], Iran received as much as $33.6 billion in cash," said Mark Dubowitz, executive director for the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, in written testimony to the House Financial Services Committee.

Dubowitz called the $33.6-billion figure "the worst-case scenario," adding that it also could have been denominated "in gold and other precious metals."