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Sen. Mitt Romney raised concerns over President Joe Biden\u2019s decision to nominate Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to be the ambassador to Israel \u2014 a post that currently sits vacant.<\/p>\n
At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Wednesday, Romney questioned Lew over decisions he made related to a nuclear deal with Iran during the Obama administration.<\/p>\n
Romney also spoke at the hearing about his recent visit to Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cI, along with a handful of other senators, were in Israel over the weekend and had the chance to meet with leadership there, the former leadership of the country, as well as with military leaders and with families of hostages,\u201d the Utah senator said.<\/p>\n
He said that while Biden\u2019s pick for the ambassadorship can be approved by Democrats alone, he said he wanted to pass along some observations to Lew before asking him questions about his role in releasing funds to Iran.<\/p>\n
Related<\/p>\n
Romney recounted his time in Israel, where he met the families of hostages taken by Hamas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe outrage, the brutality, the inhumanity of Hamas in the way they took children and others and grabbed them and took them across the border is hard to comprehend. And we need to do everything within our power to secure the release of those hostages\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Romney noted that the leading general of the Israeli Defense Forces said their intent isn\u2019t to get vengeance on Palestinians, but the hostages are \u201cbeing used as human shields and in many cases, there will be deaths, but they will be unfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Utah senator said that Hamas has threatened the lives of Israeli citizens, and \u201cit is unacceptable for Hamas to continue to exist, certainly in the proximity that they have enjoyed from the Gaza Strip.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said there\u2019s been an absence of answers on what the next steps will be if Hamas is successfully rooted out, and this \u201cwill be a great priority\u201d for Lew, should he be confirmed. <\/p>\n
Romney also expressed that he was \u201cvery troubled\u201d by the findings of the Senate Homeland Security Committee\u2019s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 2018, which linked Lew to the Iran nuclear deal.<\/p>\n
The 2018\u00a0Senate <\/a>report said that the Treasury Department under former President Barack Obama, where Lew worked at the time, \u201cgranted a specific license that authorized a conversion of Iranian assets worth billions of U.S. dollars using the U.S. financial system.\u201d And officials like Lew \u201cmaintained in congressional testimony that Iran would not be granted access to the U.S. financial system.\u201d<\/p>\n Roughly $5.7 billion was transferred from U.S. banks to Iranian assets.<\/p>\n \u201cI wonder how the White House could have brought forward a nomination, given that report and given the clear indication that the Republican members, at least and hopefully some Democrat members as well, would be troubled by and moved by the results of that report from the Subcommittee on Investigations,\u201d said Romney.<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., also said on X<\/a>, \u201cWe need to have an ambassador in Israel, but it has to be the right person.\u201d Rubio is also on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.<\/p>\n Lew said that he has remained close with Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who led the investigation in 2018.<\/p>\n \u201cI spoke to him as recently as last night. I would just invite anyone who questions whether he thinks that I\u2019m somebody who keeps my word. I would just suggest they talk to Senator Portman,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Romney questioned Lew about the $6 billion in Iranian funds that were set to be released by the Biden administration as a part of a prisoner exchange \u2014 an idea that has since been put on hold<\/a>.<\/p>\n U.S. sanctions against Iran still allow the country to use the funds for humanitarian purposes.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, I know enough about money to know that funds are fungible and that if we say we\u2019re going to give you $6 billion, but you\u2019ve got to use it for food and hospitals for your population, Iran can say, \u2018Thank you, that\u2019s what we use the $6 billion for now. We\u2019ve freed up $6 billion that we otherwise would have used ourselves for food and hospital, and now we can use that to build nuclear weapons or provide money to Hezbollah or Hamas.\u2019 Am I wrong?\u201d Romney asked, adding that the money is still funding \u201ca state sponsor of terror.\u201d<\/p>\n Lew said that Iran isn\u2019t a \u201crational economic player\u201d and has \u201can evil, malign government\u201d that prioritizes funds terrorism.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, when Iran gets access to food and medicine for its people, that\u2019s food and medicine they wouldn\u2019t otherwise have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cSadly, supporting terrorist organizations like Hamas and terrorist organizations like Hezbollah, that\u2019s not very expensive,\u201d Lew added. \u201cSo it\u2019s not a purely economic question. It\u2019s really a question of who are we dealing with. We\u2019re not dealing with people who trade off guns and butter. Guns come first.\u201d<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n<\/div>\nWill Iran use the unfrozen $6 billion to fund terrorism?<\/h3>\n