Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told U.S. Senators on Jan. 31, 2012 that he was 'not current' on the financial influence Iran has in Venezuela through its banking system. FBI Director Robert Mueller is in the background. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)

(CNSNews.com) – Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told lawmakers Tuesday he would need to “research a little bit” claims that Iran is using its ties to the Venezuelan banking system to dodge sanctions.

During a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on global threats facing the United States, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) asked Clapper and a panel of top intelligence officials about Iran’s influence in the Western Hemisphere.

“I think it’s generally accepted – I think it’s fact – that Iran is willing to sponsor and use terrorism as a tool of its foreign policy and its statecraft around the world,” Rubio said, adding that he viewed with “alarm” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s trip to Venezuela in early January.

Rubio expressed concern about the Venezuelan banking system, through which billions of dollars flow. “Could it not be used as a place to evade sanctions, for example?” he asked.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said at a Jan. 31, 2012 hearing that he viewed with 'alarm' Iran's influence in the Western Hemisphere. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)

Rubio cited the Banco Internacional de Desarrollo, a Venezuela-based independent subsidiary of the Export Development Bank of Iran (EDBI), and noted that it has been linked to funding Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations.

He asked whether the intelligence community was focused on the threats posed by Iran’s influence in and ties to the Western Hemisphere.

“We are concerned about it,” replied Clapper, who gave prepared testimony on behalf of colleagues.

Iran was “looking anywhere for a friendly hand,” Clapper said, but added that he would need time to bone up on the specific financial concern raised by Rubio.

“I would like to research a little bit these financial banking – potential financial banking connections,” he said. “I’m not current on that specifically, but I think that if there is, that’s indicative of their attempts to, again, evade sanctions, which they have worked very insidiously in the past.”

This is not the first time Clapper has been caught unaware. In December 2010, in an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, Clapper did not know about a major counterterrorism raid in England hours after it happened.

White House officials at the time said Clapper’s staff had not briefed him on the day's events in London because Clapper was involved in "other pressing intelligence matters." (See earlier story.)

The U.S. Treasury on October 22, 2008 designated EDBI under executive order 13382 for providing services to the Iranian armed forces, and designated the Venezuelan institution the same day for being owned and controlled by EDBI.

The executive order aims at freezing the assets of proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters. Designated companies or individuals are subject to a U.S. asset freeze and are prohibited from engaging in transactions with any U.S. citizen.

On the home page of its Web site, the Banco Internacional de Desarrollo cites a Venezuelan banking regulator as saying there was no evidence of the bank’s involvement with Iran’s “nuclear activities.”

In a September 2009 speech, veteran Manhattan district attorney Robert Morgenthau warned of a “blossoming relationship between what might seem unlikely bedfellows” – Iran and Venezuela – and said they were “creating a cozy financial, political, and military partnership.”

He said the Islamic regime in Tehran had found in the left-wing government of President Hugo Chavez “the perfect ally,” one whose financial system could be exploited to get around sanctions imposed against Iran for its nuclear activities.

Rubio on Tuesday urged the intelligence community to consider policy that laid out specifically “the things we’re not going to tolerate” in the Western Hemisphere.

“I think there’s potentially always the risk that some may think we’re so distracted in other parts of the world that there are certain things they may be able to get away with in terms of capability building, that we’re somehow not going to respond to,” he told the panel.