In an investigative report published today, the Wall Street Journal detailed how “Iran established a clandestine banking and finance system to handle tens of billions of dollars in annual trade banned under U.S.-led sanctions…. [which] Iranian authorities aim to make [] a permanent part of the economy…” This was occurring from the very start of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed in 2015, even as then-Secretary of State John Kerry conducted a European tour to campaign for the continent’s major financial institutions to back the JCPOA and seek entry to the Iranian market. 

Former U.S. officials who spearheaded the Trump Administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran are facing “serious and credible’ threats from Iran.”

Last week, two groups of U.S. representatives and senators sent letters to President Biden expressing their apprehension over the likelihood of a nuclear deal with Iran. The bipartisan group of House Members and the group of 49 Republican senators warned that the reported contours of the deal being negotiated would not meet the Biden Administration’s promise for a “longer and stronger” agreement.

Today, British-Iranian nationals Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anousheh Ashoori were released from captivity by the Iranian regime. Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been unjustly held since 2016 and Ashoori since 2017, both on trumped up charges and in brutal and inhuman conditions.