Amazing coincidence: Secret payment of $400 million air-lifted to Iran the day 4 hostages released
Don’t call it ransom! No, no, no! It was all just a coincidence that (via Jay Soloman and Carol E. Lee of the Wall Street Journal):
The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.
Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.
The Iranians have no problem calling it ransom:
U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to show they had gained something tangible. (snip)
Iranian press reports have quoted senior Iranian defense officials describing the cash as a ransom payment. The Iranian foreign ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
But what do they know? We can trust them to follow the nuclear deal, but we can’t trust them to keep their mouths shut accurately characterize the process by which a very, very large amount of money was secretly flown to Iran. That was…uhhh…open diplomacy. Just as surely as James Comey exonerated Hillary from telling any lies about her email, you can believe that this was not ransom.