[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 5998]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             THE IRAN DEAL

  (Mr. LaHOOD asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Speaker, after more than a year, the Obama 
administration's Iran nuclear deal remains deeply unpopular.
  At the time of the agreement, the American people believed they had 
given up too much, and they were right. We already knew the 
administration had paid cash in exchange for American prisoners, but 
this week we learned from an investigation by Politico that the Obama 
administration was also not truthful about the Iranian prisoners we 
released.
  These prisoners were not ``civilians accused of trade violations,'' 
as the administration had claimed. They were men who posed a threat to 
our national security, accused of supplying Iran with materials for 
their weapons program.
  It had taken hundreds of hours for our law enforcement and 
intelligence services to track down and build cases against these men, 
and the Obama administration was willing to undo all of that to use 
these men as a bargaining chip.
  Undermining our national security is not in the best interest of our 
country, nor is being dishonest with the American people.
  As we move forward, we must be clear-eyed and vigilant with the 
Iranian regime and its intentions while supporting and strengthening 
our intelligence community. That is a path towards a nuclear-free Iran.

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