Legal Af
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Trump DOJ’s Silent Move to Bury the Largest Iran Sanctions Case
Posted
March 19, 2026
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18,762
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March 19, 2026
18,762
1,861
93
10.41%
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11:07Now PlayingAttorneys Brian Kabateck and Shant Karnikian break down the collapse of the Halkbank prosecution — a seven-year case in which U.S. prosecutors indicted Turkey's state-run bank for secretly transferring $20 billion in Iranian funds through gold, front companies, and fake humanitarian aid transactions to evade American sanctions. A key cooperating witness, Iranian-Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab, pled guilty and testified that Turkish President Erdogan personally approved the scheme. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that sovereign immunity doesn't shield foreign state-owned banks from criminal prosecution. The Southern District of New York was ready to take it to trial. Then Erdogan personally lobbied Trump to kill the case — calling it "unlawful" and "ugly" — and after a September White House meeting, Erdogan told reporters Trump assured him "the Halkbank problem is finished for us." The result: a deferred prosecution agreement with no guilty plea, no financial penalty, and no admission of wrongdoing. If the bank keeps its nose clean for a couple of years, charges are dismissed entirely. The DOJ justified it by citing Turkey's role in brokering the Hamas hostage deal. The attorneys note the absurdity of letting a bank that helped fund Iran walk free while the U.S. is simultaneously at war with Iran — and connect it to Trump's pattern of bending over backwards for authoritarian strongmen.
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