House Foreign Affairs Chair McCaul Says He’s Looking at Options to Freeze $6B in Iranian Assets

Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said on Thursday that he's looking into legislative options to freeze $6 billion in Iranian assets, saying "their fingerprints" are all over the Hamas attacks.

"They put the money in, they put the weapons in and for God's sakes, we shouldn't be giving them $6 billion on top of all of this," McCaul said on Fox Business.

McCaul also called Iran the "largest state sponsor of terror," and joined the many Republicans and few Democrats who have been calling for the Biden administration to block the money.

U.S. defense officials have said the funds are only for humanitarian purposes and monitored by third party vendors, and that nothing has yet been spent. McCaul called those statements "dumb" and naive.

"That's a naiveté of the administrations. 'We're gonna launder the money from South Korea to the Qataris and somehow the Qataris are gonna make sure this is humanitarian aid.' When the president Iran himself said 'I'm gonna do with the money, what I want,' " McCaul said. "To people that aren't even national security experts, they see how this is so unwise."