Demanded bin Ladin’s Death Certificate, Denied

Posted on June 20, 2015June 20, 2015 by Denise Simon

As written about in detail here, a hacking group calling itself the Yemen Cyber Army performed a cyber intrusion into the Saudi ministry of Foreign Affairs. A particular set of communications points to the request for Usama bin Ladin’s death certificate, and the United States denied the request. Other Freedom of Information requests were also made and the response was, there is no record.

Osama bin Laden’s son asked the U.S. government for his father’s death certificate. The U.S. said no.

by: Adam Taylor, Washington Post

According to a recently leaked document, the son of al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden, Abdullah bin Laden, sent a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia to ask for his father’s death certificate.

In response, the embassy wrote to Abdullah to inform him that there was no death certificate issued for the older bin Laden.

The letter went on to suggest other ways that the al-Qaeda leader’s death could be officially confirmed.

The remarkable exchange has come to light thanks to the latest release from WikiLeaks, the controversial secret sharing organization helmed by Julian Assange. On Friday, the organization released what it said was the first part of more than a half-million cables and other documents from the Saudi Foreign Ministry, which it had dubbed “The Saudi Cables.”

The U.S. Embassy’s response to Abdallah was included within the release. It is dated Sept. 9, 2011, approximately four months after bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces during a raid on his hideout in Pakistan. U.S. officials have said that bin Laden was later buried at sea. Requests to publish photographs of bin Laden’s body or his burial have been denied and any photographs taken are suspected to have been destroyed.

In the letter to Abdullah bin Laden, Glen Keiser, a consul general at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, explains that the lack of a death certificate for bin Laden is “consistent with regular practice for individuals killed in the course of military operations.”

Keiser goes on to suggest that the criminal case against Osama bin Laden had effectively been dropped due to his death since June 2011, and describes a process for requesting the order of “nolle prosequi” (which literally means “unwilling to pursue”) from the court, which could act as proof of death.

It’s unclear why Abdullah bin Laden had requested the death certificate.

In 2012, the Department of Defense responded to an Associated Press Freedom of Information Act request and said that it was unable to find a death certificate for bin Laden.

Newly declassified documents from the compound in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011 have revealed the late al-Qaeda leader’s remarkable English-language library, including books by Noam Chomsky, Bob Woodward and even 9/11 conspiracy theorist David Ray Griffin.

Yet the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which released the files on Wednesday, has not released all the material found in the compound. In fact, there’s a rather notorious stash that the U.S. government apparently doesn’t want you to see: a cache of pornography.

We’re Sorry Israel, We Are Embarrassed by POTUS

Posted on June 19, 2015June 19, 2015 by Denise Simon

The president during his entire term has been petulant and his actions and decisions regarding the Middle East are epically wrong and dangerous.

After a particular report released this week by the State Department by the Bureau of Terrorism, in simple words, one could easily conclude that under Barack Obama, the grace delivered to Iran during years of talks would have a hidden objective that Iran fulfills its pledge to destroy Israel, relieving Obama’s ultimate mission. There is no question that all top leaders in the foreign policy side of the Obama administration are consumed with disdain for Israel.

The report gives special recognition to Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority giving praise for positive actions to keep peace in the region. Another summary by Jonathan Tobin in Commentary has an out-take of the report that reads:

The report also restates the widely reported fact that Iran “continued to be in noncompliance with its international obligations regarding its nuclear program.” But unless the Obama administration grows a spine and changes its policies within weeks the United States will sign a nuclear deal with Tehran that will soon result in a vast windfall of cash falling into Iran’s hands. Yet nowhere in the nuclear framework agreement is there any promise, however lacking in credibility, that Iran will foreswear the same activities that the State Department just reported and which, by U.S. law, ought to mandate continued sanctions rather than an end to restrictions on doing business with the Islamist regime.

Iran is also a primary obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinians because of its funding and arms supplies funneled to terror groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Iran had previously been a primary supporter of Hamas but broke with the rulers of the independent Palestinian state in all but name in Gaza over differences on Syria. But now that Iran and Assad appear to be in no danger and short of money and arms after last summer’s war, Hamas appears to have come back into Tehran’s good graces. But even during their split, Iran was still doing its best to keep other radicals so as to ensure that Palestinian leaders are too afraid to make peace with Israel even if they wanted to do so.

But in spite of this activity reported by its own State Department, there is little doubt that the administration is bound and determined to go ahead and sign a nuclear deal with Iran.

So, when it comes to the broken relationship between the White House and Israel, here is a first hand account of key disgusting moments at the hands of the Obama regime.

An Inside Look At How Obama Killed The U.S.-Israel Relationship

Oren book reveals Immense hostility, anger at Israel

In his new memoir, former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren documents the rapid dissolution of the historically close U.S.-Israel alliance under President Barack Obama. Oren recounts being threatened and intimidated at multiple junctures by Obama and his senior officials, marking many firsts in a relationship that has long been the cornerstone of American foreign policy.

The memoir, Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide, has already rushed to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list. It provides a window into the daily stresses and strains Obama and his allies heaped upon the Jewish state—from placing unprecedented demands on Israel regarding the peace process to fabricating crises in the U.S.-Israel alliance.

“Prophecy was not required to foresee that an Obama presidency might strain the U.S.-Israel alliance,” Oren writes in the early pages of his book.

Obama stacked his administration with senior officials hostile to Israel and pursued a policy of “daylight” with Jewish state, Oren recounts.

“The first thing Obama will do in office is pick a fight with Israel,” Oren recalls a confidant as telling him in the early days of the administration.

Below are a series of passages that reveal in detail how the U.S.-Israel alliance hit historic lows under the Obama administration.

1. ‘I know how to deal with people who oppose me’

The tension between Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel began during their first meeting at the White House, Oren recalls. While the meeting appeared to go “smoothly,” behind the scenes Obama outwardly threatened Netanyahu.

“Face-to-face, I later heard, Obama had demanded that Netanyahu cease all building not only in the territories but also in the disputed areas of Jerusalem,” Oren writes. “‘Not a single brick,’” the president purportedly said. ‘I know how to deal with people who oppose me.’”

2. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Commanders Never Trusted Obama

Oren recounts listening to Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo while stationed in the IDF’s headquarters. “Their reactions typified that of a great many Israelis.”

These commanders “scoffed at what they regarded as Obama’s inexperience with the Middle East, where magnanimity is often seen as weakness. They cringed at his tendency to equate America’s moral foibles with the honor killings, human trafficking, and the suppression of women, foreign workers, and indigenous minorities rampant in many Muslim countries,” Oren writes.

Their opinions only grew dimmer when Obama “linked that legitimacy [of Israel] to the Jews’ ‘tragic history’ in the Holocaust. That linkage seemed to me to be the most damaging part of his speech.”

3. The Anti-Israel State Department

Oren’s first meeting with then-Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg was fraught and filled with demands that Israel consent to Obama administration demands for a total building freeze in Jerusalem. Such intimidation and threats would be a cornerstone of Oren’s meetings with senior officials at Foggy Bottom.

“Discord indeed mired my initial meeting with Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg,” Oren writes.

“Under the administration’s policy, a Jew could only build his home in certain Jerusalem neighborhoods but an Arab could build anywhere—even illegally—without limit. ‘In America,’ I said, ‘that’s called discrimination.’”

Later in his tenure, Steinberg would again upbraid Oren. State Department staffers apparently “listened in on” the angry meeting and “cheered,” according to Oren.

4. Congressional Democrats Scold Oren

A handful of congressional Democrats berated Oren during his first trip to Capitol Hill as ambassador.

“In our first conversation, Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida caught me off guard with a letter from a constituent alleging ‘Israeli economic apartheid’ in the territories,” Oren recalls.

Later, “Senator Dianne Feinstein offered me a glass of select California wine and said, ‘I am a peacemaker but you are a fighter.’”

Later in the book, Oren recalls taking a call from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), who “railed at me so furiously [about Israeli criticism of Obama] that I literally had to hold the phone form my ear.”

5. Obama Tells Off Prominent American Jewish Leaders in Private Meeting

Obama’s first meeting with a delegation of top American Jewish leaders was tense, according to Oren.

While such gatherings “had become standard” for previous White Houses, “for Obama … the briefings were less a means of garnering support than of muting opposition. Indeed, what many American Jewish leaders saw as the placing of undue pressure on Israel, the president regarded as displays of restraint.”

Obama invited the anti-Israel fringe group J Street to participate in these private meetings, a move that angered more mainstream Jewish leaders.

6. Rahm Emanuel’s Angry Outbursts

Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, notorious for his profanity-laden outbursts, woke Oren one morning with an angry call.

“I don’t like this f***ing shit,” Oren quotes Emanuel as saying about Israel’s refusal to stop building Jewish homes in disputed territories.

“Rahm, I knew, was not enamored of my boss or of the American Jewish leaders whom he faulted for backing Netanyahu unconditionally,” Oren writes.

Later in the book, Oren recalls Emanuel referring to a settlement dispute between Israel and the U.S. as “a pimple on the ass of the U.S.-Israel friendship.”

7. White House Orders Senior Officials to Criticize Israel

In addition to privately embracing the anti-Israel fringe group J Street, the Obama administration sent top officials to speak at its first national conference in Washington, D.C.

Oren, who refused to participate in the event, reveals that Obama administration officials had direct orders to criticize Israel publicly.

Hannah Rosenthal, the administration’s former adviser on anti-Semitism, “issued her first denunciation not of anti-Semites, but rather of me for boycotting the summit,” Oren writes.

“Hannah eventually became a friend and I never took her comment personally,” he adds. “Nor did I believe that she acted on her own, since I later learned that some of the criticism emanated directly from the White House.”

8. Hillary Clinton Refuses to Meet With Oren

Oren reveals that in the early days of his tenure, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refused to meet with him in person.

“I reached out to Hillary Clinton, asking for a private meeting, only to be rebuffed,” Oren recalls.

9. Hillary Blows Her Top

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton learned of Israeli plans to transform a slum in Jerusalem into a ritzy tourist mall, “she nearly blew her top,” according to Oren.

The slum was deemed controversial due to its location in an East Jerusalem neighborhood the administration considered as disputed.

“We practically had to scrape her off the ceiling,” according to a senior American official who spoke to Oren.

10. White House Wrongly Accuses Oren Of Interfering in U.S. Politics

When U.S.-Israel tensions hit a high point in 2010, Oren frantically sought to diffuse the hostility by setting up a meeting with then-Senior White House Adviser David Axelrod.

“I urged him to find a way out of a situation that I feared might become dangerous for Israel, but Axelrod calmly brushed this aside,” Oren recalls. “Instead, he accused me of urging congressmen to hold on until [the] 2012 [elections], that Obama would never get reelected. That charge of interfering in internal American politics could have rendered me persona non grata and resulted in my expulsion from the United States.”

11. Obama Withholds Vital Arms From Israel

After working furiously to secure a deal with U.S. officials for 20 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, Obama cancelled the arms sale, according to Oren.

“The impact, for Israel, was calamitous,” Oren writes. “Editorials—apparently fanned by official sources—suggested that the F-35s has been an Israeli demand, rather than an American offer.”

12. Robert Gates Has A ‘Visceral Dislike of Netanyahu’

A $60 billion U.S. arms sale to Saudi Arabia in 2010 sent Israeli officials scrambling.

U.S. and Israeli leaders saw the sale as an affront to the Jewish State’s Qualitative Military Edge (QME), a longstanding deal in which the United States has assured Israel’s military supremacy in the region.

“Such concerns [about maintaining the QME] unnerved Netanyahu in a July 6 meeting with [former Secretary of Defense] Robert Gates,” who had “long harbored a visceral dislike of Netanyahu,” according to Oren.

“The animus” between Netanyahu and Gates “was discernible in the Blair House reception room, where Netanyahu promptly took Gates to task for the Saudi sale.”

13. White House Orders Israel to Hold Off On Iran Strike

As the Iranian march for nuclear weapons hit a critical point in the summer of 2009, the Obama administration publicly affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself.

Behind the scenes, though, the White House ordered Israel to lay off Tehran.

“Off camera … the message was ‘Don’t you dare,’” Oren recalls. “Washington quietly quashed any military option for Israel.”

14. Obama Destroys ‘More Than 40 Years of American Policy’ Toward Israel

On the eve of a critical vote at the United Nations on a Palestinian-backed resolution to condemn Israeli settlements, Obama held a 50-minute phone call with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority .

Obama, during that call, promised to “renew America’s demand for a total freeze on Israeli construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.” He also promised to lend his support “for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines,” an unprecedented call from a U.S. president, Oren writes.

Israel “was never consulted about this conversation nor even informed,” Oren writes, claiming that the White House even lied about the conversation. “The White House spokesman insisted the subject was Egypt.”

“The Prime Minster’s Office had learned of Obama’s offer to Abbas from U.N. sources, not the United States, and was outraged,” Oren recounts. “The White House has overnight altered more than forty years of American policy” and “Israel felt abandoned.”

15. Susan Rice Yells At Oren

Following the White House’s move to leave Israel in the dark on the U.N. vote, Oren met with then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice.

Rice sat in her New York office “brooding and peevishly tapping her forehead with her finger,” according to Oren.

“Israel must freeze all settlement activity,” Oren recalls her saying. “Otherwise the United States will not be able to protect Israel from Palestinian actions at the U.N.”

“’If you don’t appreciate the fact that we defend you night and day, tell us,’ Rice fumed, practically rapping her forehead. ‘We have other important things to do.’”

16. ‘The President is Going to Take On the Prime Minister’

Ahead of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual conference in Washington, a senior U.S. official told Oren that Obama was out to “take on” Netanyahu directly.

Both leaders were scheduled to give talks at the pro-Israel lobbying group’s annual confab.

“The president is going to take on the prime minster in front of AIPAC,” former White House Chief Of Staff Bill Daley told Oren. “And if he gets booed, so what?”

17. Obama Officials Embrace ‘Israel Lobby’ Canard

Writing in the New York Times after Netanyahu’s address to AIPAC, columnist Tom Friedman asked if “Netanyahu understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”

“I called Tom the moment the article came online and urged him to retract it,” Oren recalls. “You’ve confirmed the worst anti-Semitic stereotype, that Jews purchase seats in Congress,” Oren informed him.

Friedman’s response: “For every call I’ve received protesting, I’ve gotten ten congratulating me for finally telling the truth. … Many of those calls were from senior administration officials.”

18. Senior State Department Official Curses at Oren

Disagreements between the United States and Israel reached another boiling point when the Palestinian Authority moved to gain unilateral recognition at the U.N.

Congressional law mandated that such a move should result in the closure of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Washington office, the cut off of U.S. aid to the PA, and the termination of all U.S. funding to any U.N. organization that recognized Palestine.

“Israel strongly endorsed all three repercussions, which the White House just as vehemently opposed,” Oren writes.

While pushing Israel’s cause at the State Department, Oren was chastised by Deputy Secretary Tom Nides.

“You don’t want the fucking U.N. to collapse because of your fucking conflict with the Palestinians, and you don’t want the fucking Palestinian Authority to fall apart either,” Nides purportedly said to Oren.

19. Obama Hearts Erdoğan

During a meeting at the White House with Israeli leaders, Obama allegedly expressed great support and faith in Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a notorious critic of Israel who has promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

“He’s not living in the sixteenth century,” Obama told the Israelis present in the meeting, according to Oren. “We could do much worse than have a bunch of Erdogans in the Middle East.”

20. Obama Keeps Israel In Dark About Syria Strikes

When the United States first decided to launch airstrikes against Syria, Israel was left in the dark, another first in the U.S.-Israel relationship, according to Oren.

The ambassador learned about the strikes while listening to the radio.

“The razor froze in mid-shave,” he writes. “Wiping the foam from my face, I rushed to the embassy. The once-sacred principle of ‘no surprises’ in the U.S.-Israel alliance had fallen into desuetude during the Obama period, but never to this depth on an issue so vital to our immediate security.”

21. Obama Only Backs Israel ‘Because That’s What the American People Want’

During yet another meeting between Obama and Netanyahu, the president attempted to reassure Israel that it would defend it in any war with Iran.

Obama revealed that he only backs Israel because a plurality of Americans demands it.

“If war comes, we’re with you, because that’s what the American people want,” Oren recalls Obama saying.

Mexican Gulf Cartels Surveillance Systems

Posted on June 19, 2015June 19, 2015 by Denise Simon

From Breitbart:

The former Tamaulipas governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores was charged on May 27, 2015 on two counts, money laundering and crimes against the United States.

MCALLEN, Texas — The U.S. federal government has formally announced that yet another former governor from Mexico has now become a fugitive sought by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District Of Texas announced Friday morning that former Tamaulipas governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores has been charged with money laundering and money laundering conspiracy charges.

As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, Hernandez has been implicated in money laundering through a series of civil forfeiture cases accusing him of laundering bribe money that he received for government favors, as well as from Mexican drug traffickers including Los Zetas.

Hernandez, who was the governor from 2005 to 2010, is the second Tamaulipas governor to be criminally charged in the U.S. on money laundering charges connected to taking money from Mexican drug cartels. Tomas Yarrington Ruvalcaba, who served as governor before Hernandez, is currently facing money laundering and drug trafficking charges for his alleged role in helping the Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas and other Mexican cartels.

It gets worse as Breitbart publishes the following:

Mexican authorities take down a complex surveillance system made up of a range of <a href= home security cameras, set up by the Gulf Cartel in the border city of Reynosa” width=”398″ height=”359″ />

REYNOSA, Tamaulipas – Once again, Mexican authorities have dismantled a complex video surveillance system set up by the Gulf Cartel in order to keep tabs on authorities, their rivals and their future victims. Breitbart Texas reported on the discovery and destruction of a similar system in May.

This time, authorities seized 39 video surveillance cameras set up around the city under orders from the criminal organization, information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Tamaulipas government revealed.

The seizure began on Tuesday evening, when state police officers spotted two men setting up one of the cameras in the Doctores (Doctor’s) neighborhood. Once in police custody, the two men told authorities that they had just finished setting up another 38 cameras around the city, the information provided by authorities revealed.

Under police guard, the two men took the authorities to the various spots where they had set up the cameras so that officers could take them down. The police did not release the names of the two suspects because the investigation into the cameras remains ongoing.

As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, last month Mexican authorities had discovered a sophisticated surveillance network in which the Gulf cartel placed video cameras in at least 52 different spots around the city. Some of the cameras worked wirelessly and would be controlled remotely.

At the time, Mexican officials confirmed to Breitbart Texas that the Gulf Cartel used the surveillance network in an effort to try to stay one step ahead of law enforcement, as well as to track their victims.

What has Stopped Detention and Deportation

Posted on June 19, 2015June 19, 2015 by Denise Simon

Barack Obama has selectively issued waivers on countless laws, one with real consequences is deportations. Then in August of 2013, the federal court, noted the 9th circuit ruled in a case Rodrigues v. Robbins that long-term detention without due process required immediate bond hearings. As a result, detention and deportations laws and procedures have been turned upside down.

Enforcement? What Enforcement?

by Mark Krikorian

Three recent items highlight the continuing collapse of interior immigration enforcement under Obama.

The first is information pried out of DHS by Senators Grassley and Sessions: One hundred twenty-one convicted criminals who faced deportation orders between 2010 and 2014 were never removed from the country and now face murder charges, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Just to be clear, these were convicted criminals, in ICE custody, who had been ordered deported but were instead released back into U.S. communities, and then went on to murder Americans. Most were released simply because the administration didn’t want to detain them. Only for two dozen does the administration have any excuse at all, saying that they had to be released because their home countries wouldn’t take them back. And even that’s no excuse, for two reasons: the Supreme Court decision Obama’s people point to (Zadvydas v. Davis) limiting open-ended detention beyond six months of any criminal aliens whose countries won’t take them back has significant wiggle room in it – wiggle room the administration refuses, in this one and only instance, to take advantage of.

And second, the law requires the State Department to impose visa sanctions on countries that won’t take their own citizens back, a requirement Secretaries Clinton and Kerry have simply ignored. Some of the blood of these 121 murdered Americans (whose names we don’t know, presumably because ICE is protecting their murders’ privacy rights) is on the hands of this administration, which chose to release the convicted criminal aliens back into the United States rather than keep them in detention.

If that’s not depressing enough, Maria Sachetti at the Boston Globe has done yeoman’s work in uncovering hundreds of immigrant sex criminals whom ICE let go because of the same Supreme Court ruling – without even making sure they were registered with local authorities as sex offenders. Here’s what happened in several instances after their release by ICE: Immigration officials tried to deport Luis-Leyva Vargas, 47, to Cuba after he served three years in a Florida prison for unlawful sex with a teen. In 2008, officials released him. Two years later, he kidnapped an 18-year-old in Rockingham County, Va., at knifepoint and raped her. Now he is serving a 55-year prison sentence. Felix Rodriguez, a 67-year-old sex offender convicted of raping children as young as 4 in the 1990s, was freed in 2009, also because Cuba would not take him back. Months later, he fatally shot his girlfriend in Kansas City. He pleaded guilty and is serving 10 years in a Missouri prison. Andrew Rui Stanley, convicted in 2000 of multiple counts of sodomizing a child when Stanley was 14, was released in 2009 after Brazil failed to provide a passport needed to send him home. For the next two years, he viciously abused three children in St. Louis and now, at age 31, will be in prison for the rest of his life. None of these sickening crimes should have been allowed to occur. An administration that took public safety seriously would find ways to detain criminals until they could be deported, and apply whatever pressure was needed to get their native countries to comply. But this is not that administration. And finally, on a less grisly note, my colleague Jessica Vaughan has uncovered data showing a collapse in worksite enforcement.

In effect, as the Washington Times headline put it, “Obama gives free pass to businesses that hire illegals.” From 2013 to 2015, the number of ICE audits of employer records (to check the work eligibility of employees) dropped 86 percent; arrests of crooked employers dropped 73 percent; and fines collected dropped 51 percent. It seems that once it became clear that Sen. Rubio’s amnesty/immigration-surge bill was not going to reach his desk, Obama called a halt to the (limited) show of worksite enforcement he had ordered up to persuade skeptical Republican House members that he could be trusted to enforce the provisions of Rubio’s amnesty/immigration-surge bill. The fact that he cut back so drastically on enforcement when it was no longer politically useful is proof that such skepticism was warranted.

And finally, as evidence of this administration’s true priorities, USCIS is broadcasting “DACA Renewal Tips” out of a concern that some recipients of Obama’s lawless version of the DREAM Act amnesty may not renew their two-year work permits (presumably to avoid paying the fee, since they that there won’t be any enforcement consequences from reverting to illegal status).

State Dept. Breaking Laws for the Sake of Iran

Posted on June 19, 2015June 19, 2015 by Denise Simon

At least on 2 tracks the State Department is breaking the law when it comes to Iran.

Sanctions

The State Department (State) is three years late in slapping certain sanctions on Iran, prompting new allegations that the Barack Obama administration is deliberately skirting US law in its quest for a nuclear deal.

Under the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA), State is supposed to inform Congress every six months of attempts to help the three countries obtain weapons of mass destruction and certain missile technology. The law requires the agency to sanction violators or justify its decision not to.

But the department has fallen way behind in recent years, according to a government watchdog report obtained by Al-Monitor. Delays have kept on getting longer, with Congress receiving an update on violations committed in 2011 only in December 2014.

“Our analysis demonstrates that State is falling further and further behind in providing the reports and is now juggling a backlog of draft reports at different stages of that process,” the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report concludes. “The imposition of sanctions no sooner than 3 or more years after the transfer occurred may diminish the credibility of the threatened sanction.”

The State Department acknowledges the delays but faults a complex web of agency reviews to make sure allegations of violations are substantiated. Republicans, however, are jumping on the report as further evidence of the Obama administration bending over backwards to placate Tehran.

“How many overtures of good will are we sending to these guys? How many times do we have to bend over to look like we’re good people?” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., told Al-Monitor ahead of her Middle East subcommittee’s hearing on the issue the afternoon of June 17. “It’s unbelievable. Iran keeps demanding more of us, and we keep on giving them more kind signals.”

The GAO report is but the latest example of questionable sanctions enforcement that has raised congressional ire in recent months.

Earlier this year, according to Israel, the United States allowed Iran to purchase used airplanes for an airline that the United States has blacklisted for its ties to Hezbollah and the Iranian National Guard. More details here from al Monitor.

Human Rights Report

Via Free Beacon: Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is seeking to fine the State Department for illegally withholding the release of a key report on Iranian human rights abuses that was supposed to be released earlier this year, but was withheld, according to sources, in order to appease Iran as negotiations over its nuclear program approach a June 30 deadline.

The Obama administration was legally obligated to release a full report outlining the state of Iranian human rights by Feb. 25 but has so far declined to do so.

Cruz and other senators petitioned the State Department in May to comply with federal law compelling the report’s public release.

“That report was due by law on February 25,” Cruz told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview. “The Obama State Department simply ignored the law. They refused to produce the report. Months have gone by and they continue to refuse to produce the report.”

Angered by this delay, Cruz is gearing up to file legislation this week that would fine the State Department 5 percent of its budget for every 30 days it postpones releasing the report, according to a copy of the bill viewed by the Free Beacon.

“It is a penalty for willfully violating federal law,” Cruz explained. “This is also a policy decision that is profoundly counterproductive.”

“This simply puts a financial bite into the obligation because the Obama administration has demonstrated a willingness over and over again to violate federal law,” Cruz added.

Iran has long been a leading violator of human rights, carrying out hundreds of state-sanctioned executions and abusing the human rights of its citizens. Iran also continues to imprison several American citizens who human rights advocates report are being abused.

Cruz said the report is likely being delayed in order to avoid upsetting the Iranians and potentially harming ongoing nuclear discussion.

“It appears that both President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry are trying to sweep under the rug Iran’s horrific human rights record because, presumably, acknowledging that fact would be inconvenient” for the ongoing diplomacy with Iran, Cruz said.

The policy, he added, appears to be “surrender everything to the Iranian mullahs in a hope they will accede to a [nuclear deal that only accelerates their acquiring nuclear weapons.”

The lawmaker and current presidential candidate went on to accuse the administration of ignoring Iranian human rights abuses.

“This administration has consistently refused to address the human rights violations” committed by Iran, including the imprisonment of Americans such as Saeed Abedini and Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, Cruz said.

“The Obama administration seems more focused on swilling Chardonnay with Iranian despots then on securing the release of American citizens wrongly imprisoned,” he said.

In a June 9 letter to Cruz, the State Department claimed the report’s release had been delayed due to Kerry’s intense travel schedule and need to present the report in person.

“The secretary’s participation in the report rollout, even if it must be delayed by his travel, elevates the report,” the State Department said, according to a copy of the letter. “The secretary has needed to travel abroad for extended periods, often on short notice, during the past three months to address a variety of pressing foreign policy concerns.”

“We intend to release the report as soon as possible and will keep you informed,” the letter states.

Cruz criticized the State Department’s response.

“It has been 115 days since the expiration of the statutory deadline” to release the report, he said. “Secretary Kerry has not been on the road continuously for 115 days.”

Kerry, though recently injured and still recovering, phoned in via video link to the State Department’s daily briefing on Tuesday. He did not use to the opportunity to present the Iran report, sources pointed out.

A State Department official would not comment on record about when the report would finally be released.