News/Commentary

Blinken confirms Americans likely killed by Hamas, some held hostage – admits Iran funds terrorism

October 8, 2023 | | Print Article

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has revealed that there may have been Americans who were kidnapped and/or killed by Hamas.

“Does the administration know at this point if U.S. citizens were among the dead or those taken hostage,” NBC News‘ Kristen Welker asked Blinken early Sunday morning.

“So we have reports that several Americans may be among the dead,” Blinken replied. “We are very actively working to verify those reports. Similarly, we’ve seen reports about hostages and they’re, again, we’re very actively trying to verify them, and nail that down.”

Listen:

Blinken was also asked whether Iran was involved with the attack. The secretary of state admitted that Iran has had a “long relationship” with Hamas but claimed there’s no evidence to suggest the attack was funded by them.

“We don’t have anything that shows us that Iran was directly involved in this attack, in planning it or carrying it out, but that’s something we’re looking at very carefully. And we’ve got to see where the facts lead,” he said.

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But he did later admit the undeniable truth that money is fungible. Just as Planned Parenthood ostensibly isn’t supposed to use government money to fund abortions, Iran isn’t supposed to use U.S. money to fund terrorism.

“Iran has unfortunately always used and focused its funds on supporting terrorism,” Blinken said.

Listen:

This admission caused an outpouring of confusion, with critics wondering why in the world the administration would give Iran $6 billion knowing full well how they operate.

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“If you know Iran always support terrorism, why the hell are you giving billions of dollar? Are you stupid or an ally of Iran?” one critic tweeted.

See more responses below:

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Yet when asked by Welker to respond to critics on the right who’ve blamed Hamas’ terror attack on the Biden administration’s decision to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian assets, Blinken suddenly reversed course and tried to act like the U.S. had nothing to do with the money.

“The facts are that these were these were not U.S. taxpayer dollars, these were Iranian resources that it had accumulated from the sale of its oil that were stuck in a bank in South Korea from day one,” he said.

“Under our law under our sanctions, going back many years, it’s always had the right to use those funds for humanitarian purposes, for food, for medicine, for medical equipment. Funds were moved from one bank to another where it could more easily do that,” he added.

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“Not a single cent has been spent from that account. When any money is spent from that account, it can only be used for medical supplies for food for medicine, and those who are saying otherwise are either misinformed or misinforming, and it’s wrong either way,” he concluded.

But GOP presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Mike Pence, among others, aren’t buying the bull:

Neither are congressional Republicans like Byron Donalds, who made it pretty clear in a tweet that he’s 100 percent confident Iran was behind the terror attack — meaning most likely that the Biden administration is at least somewhat to blame.

Look:

Vivek Saxena
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