View photo . Singer Beyonce, center holding camera, walks with her husband, rapper Jay-Z, right of her, as they tour Old Havana, … 
 
 
 
 Sure enough , Beyoncé and Jay-Z may have 99 problems but the State Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Ain't One. 
 
 OFAC, which enforces sanctions against Cuba, assured Republican Representatives Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in a letter Tuesday that the pop power-duo's recent trip to the island on their fifth anniversary had the governmental green light. The Florida lawmakers had written to the Treasury Department demanding to know whether the trip fell afoul of Cold War-era restrictions on Americans' travel to Cuba. 
 
 "It is our understanding that the travelers in question traveled to Cuba pursuant to an educational exchange trip organized by a group authorized by OFAC to sponsor and organize programs to promote people-to-people contact in Cuba," Alastair Fitzpayne, Assistant Treasury Secretary for Legislative Affairs, wrote in the letter, which was obtained by Yahoo News. 
 
 Fitzpayne, however, also seemed to put a little distance between OFAC and the globetrotting couple, who gave vast sums to President Barack Obama's reelection campaign. He noted that "organizations holding people-to-people licenses must certify in writing to OFAC that any travel that they conduct will consist of a full-time schedule of educational activities that will result in meaningful interaction between the travelers and individuals in Cuba." 
 
 But OFAC "does not request the identities of the travelers on each trip," he said. 
 
 Ros-Lehtinen was unimpressed. 
 
 "If the tourist activities undertaken by Beyonce and Jay-Z in Cuba are classified as an educational exchange trip, then it is clear that the Obama Administration is not serious about denying the Castro regime an economic lifeline that US tourism will extend to it," the Cuban-born lawmaker said in a statement. 
 
 "That was a wedding anniversary vacation that was not even disguised as a cultural program," Ros-Lehtinen said. "As more human rights activists engage in hunger strikes, I don't think they will see any evidence of how this scam endeavor will help them become independent of the regime." 
 
 If you’re inclined to dig through Treasury's regulations, here they are, but it’s probably enough to say that, as part of a 60-year-old embargo imposed after Fidel Castro seized power, Americans aren’t supposed to go there. And lawmakers like Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart have denounced tourism in Cuba because it provides the Communist government there with sorely needed foreign currency. 
 
 The embargo, first imposed by Dwight Eisenhower in 1960 and tightened by many of his successors, aimed to punish Castro’s government for nationalizing U.S. property, to dissuade other Latin American countries from following in Castro’s revolutionary footsteps, and, ultimately, to drive Castro from power. 
 
 Tourism to Cuba -- notably from Europe and Canada -- has increased over the years as the island has seen the development of luxury hotels. Americans have been going there in larger numbers as well, and advice on how to go there illegally has proliferated online. With the Soviet Union long gone, Americans have also softened their support for the embargo. 
 
 That's not to say that everyone approves. In March, Republican Senator Marco Rubio ripped American visitors to Cuba. "Cuba is not a zoo where you pay an admission ticket and you go in and you get to watch people living in cages to see how they are suffering," Rubio said in a speech. ||||| White House press secretary Jay Carney dismissed rapper Jay Z's claim that he spoke to the White House to get approval for a recent trip to Cuba. 
 
 "I guess nothing rhymes with Treasury," Carney said during his daily briefing Thursday. 
 
 As he said earlier in the week, Carney again said that the Treasury Department was responsible for approving the trip and said that "from the president on down," no one at the White House was involved in approving the trip. 
 
 In a rap released Thursday, Jay-Z said: “I turned Havana into Atlanta…Boy from the hood, I got White House clearance…Obama said, ‘Chill, you gonna get me impeached. You don’t need this s—t anyway, chill with me on the beach.’” 
 
 (PHOTOS: 10 lyrical shout-outs to Obama) 
 
 When pressed on whether Obama spoke with Jay-Z about Cuba at all, Carney insisted he did not. 
 
 "It’s a song," he said. "The president did not communicate with Jay-Z over this trip." 
 
 Florida Republican lawmakers Sen. Marco Rubio and Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen have critizied Jay-Z and Beyonce's trip to the communist island, and asked the administration to explain why they were allowed to go. 
 
 Read more about: Jay Carney, Cuba, Jay-Z ||||| 5 years ago 
 
 (CNN) – It seemed like White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was waiting for the question when he was asked Thursday about Jay-Z's newest rap, which focuses on his U.S. government-approved trip to Cuba with wife Beyonce last week. 
 
 In the rap, Jay-Z suggested their clearance came from the White House, when it actually came from the Treasury Department. 
 
 
 
 Follow @politicalticker 
 
 "I turned Havana into Atlanta… Boy from the 'hood, I got White House clearance. ..Obama said 'chill you gonna get me impeached.' (But) you don't need this – expletive – anyway. Chill with me on the beach," the lyrics stated. 
 
 In one of the most bizarre exchanges in the White House press briefing room, a reporter read the lyrics to Carney, asking about the White House approval. And Carney, without missing a beat, hit back. 
 
 "I guess nothing rhymes with Treasury," he said. 
 
 Treasury Secretary Jack Lew was nominated by President Barack Obama earlier year and subsequently confirmed by the Senate. 
 
 (Actually, secretary kind of rhymes with treasury.) 
 
 Pressed further on whether the president had a conversation with Jay-Z, Carney shot down the speculation. 
 
 "I am absolutely saying that the White House and the president on down had nothing to do with anybody's personal, anybody's travel to Cuba," he said. "That is something the Treasury handles." 
 
 Due to the U.S. government's travel embargo with Cuba, Americans are prohibited from visiting the communist country for tourism. U.S. citizens can apply for licenses to go anyway, provided they show substantial proof they intend to visit for specific reasons, such as for business or education. And they must also provide a detailed itinerary. 
 
 After two members of Congress called for an investigation of the power couple's controversial trip and explanation of the type of travel license issued, the Treasury Department responded in a letter, giving more details about the licenses. 
 
 "It is our understanding that the travelers in question traveled to Cuba pursuant to an educational exchange trip organized by a group authorized by OFAC [the Office of Foreign Assets Control] to sponsor and organize programs to promote people-to-people contact in Cuba," the letter read. 
 
 - CNN's Ashley Killough, Kevin Liptak and Erin McPike contributed to this report.
– The flap over Jay-Z and Beyonce's trip to Cuba resulted in what has to be one of the odder exchanges in Jay Carney's tenure as White House spokesman. In this afternoon's news briefing, Donovan Slack of Politico noted that Jay-Z released a rap today in which he suggests that President Obama himself cleared the trip. Slack quoted the line in full: Jay-Z: "I turned Havana into Atlanta. Boy from the hood, I got White House clearance. Obama said chill, you gonna get me impeached. You don’t need this (expletive) anyway, chill with me on the beach." Credit Carney for a decent comeback: "I guess nothing rhymes with Treasury, because Treasury offers and gives licenses for travel, as you know, and the White House has nothing to do with it." (Treasury had cleared it as an "educational" trip, reports Yahoo News.) Pressed to clarify, Carney—now being called "Jay C" by headline writers—insisted that neither Obama nor anyone in the White House was involved. "It's a song, Donovan. The president did not communicate with Jay-Z over this trip."