State Dept Confirms US Used $400 Million as Leverage For Prisoners
The Obama administration cannot agree with each other!
The State Department has confirmed the U.S. used the $400 million payment to Iran as leverage for the prisoners they released in January. From The New York Post:
State Department spokesman John Kirby was asked at Thursday’s press briefing: “In basic English, you’re saying you wouldn’t give them $400 million in cash until the prisoners were released, correct?”
“That’s correct,” Kirby replied.
Kirby continued:
“We deliberately leveraged that moment to finalize these outstanding issues nearly simultaneously,” he said. “With concerns that Iran may renege on the prisoner release, given unnecessary delays regarding persons in Iran who could not be located as well as, to be quite honest, mutual mistrust between Iran and the United States, we of course sought to retain maximum leverage until after American citizens were released. That was our top priority.”
That’s weird. President Barack Obama said something else:
“We do not pay ransom. We didn’t here,” Obama said. “We don’t — we won’t in the future — precisely because if we did, then we would start encouraging Americans to be targeted, much in the same way that some countries that do pay ransom end up having a lot more of their citizens being taken by various groups.”
The timing of the $400 million payment, Obama said, “was, in fact, dictated by the fact that as a consequence of us negotiating around the nuclear deal, we actually had diplomatic negotiations and conversations with Iran for the first time in several decades. So the issue is not so much that it was a coincidence as it is that we were able to have a direct discussion.”
Yesterday, Kemberlee pointed out that new evidence shows the payment acted more like a ransom than an agreed payment. The wall Street Journal reported that the “officials wouldn’t let Iranians take control of the money until a Swiss Air Force plane carrying three freed Americans departed from Tehran on Jan. 17, the officials said. Once that happened, an Iranian cargo plane was allowed to bring the cash back from a Geneva airport that day, according to the accounts.”
Earlier this month, reports surfaced that the Justice Department opposed the timing of the payment due to the image it may portray. The DOJ was correct. Senators do not buy the administration’s explanation.
Now Congress wants to pass legislation that will stop the administration from sending more money to Iran and provide details of this $1.7 billion deal:
“President Obama’s…payment to Iran in January, which we now know will fund Iran’s military expansion, is an appalling example of executive branch governance,” said Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.), who co-wrote the bill. “Subsidizing Iran’s military is perhaps the worst use of taxpayer dollars ever by an American president.”
CIA Director John Brennan insists Iran has used the money “for development projects” like supporting its own currency, providing “moneys to departments and agencies, build up its infrastructure.”
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
See? The cash was the hostage and the hostages were the payment. That genius president of ours totally flipped the script on the Iranians. What a guy.
You got it all wrong. But, I can understand your confusion.
Our glorious commander and chief, Obimsal bought our soldiers’ freedom with pulverized dead trees beaten and pressed, then stacked in neat discrete and colorful piles of paper.
So we screwed the Iranians big time.
Are they going to pay Brazil to let the US team come home?
Nah. A thank you note from John Kerry should do the trick.
Maybe he’ll go down there with James Taylor and his guitar – and be jailed.
With oil prices way down from two years ago, timing of the lifting of the sanctions, and the payment of the ransom, could not have been better — for Iran. We really missed a golden opportunity to put the screws to them.
Wonder how much we would give them if the really really hated America instead of just really hating America.
Maybe some people are just tired of the coverup(s).
In a time of progressive wars, mass abortion, rape-rape cultures, refugee crises, and other anti-native policies, where are the intrepid reporters from The Washington Post when you really need them?
If not the social justice adventurism that ended with sodomy and abortion sessions for a deposed regime and forgotten Americans, the Libya-ISIS Affair should alone spark some interest.
Always assume they are lying, no matter what they say.
I wouldn’t assume they are telling the truth about the $400 million, even now.
And Rear Admiral and DOD/DOS Spokeshole/Liar John Kirby finally admits the truth, through clenched teeth. What an unbelievable asshole
Oh gee.
I bet that Obama’s legal department is fit to be tied.
Ya can’t go out and plead guilty before you are even charged.
It doesn’t help the defense a bit.
What they haven’t explained is why they didn’t just have the first lady frown and hold up a hand-scrawled cardboard sign that reads, “Give our sailors back.”
…Or does that not really accomplish anything?
Remember when the Liar in Chief said we did not pay ransom?
And he was very condensing to the press for even asking.
Obama and Crooked Hillary… two birds in a bush. Both are compulsive liars. Neither can be trusted!
I really wish the Israeli Air Force would just come in and bomb their nuclear sites. We know an all out war is going to erupt one day between the two. Let’s just get on with it already, before they have the nuclear capability.
“Hello, Mr. Smith, you don’t know me but I have your daughter in a hole buried alive and unless you pay me $1,000,000 in leverage I will kill her”. I want the leverage to be in small denomination foreign bills stacked on a wooden pallet. I will release your daughter when the pallet arrives.”
Now I understand what kerry and obama meant by leverage!
Now, in their utter contempt for the American people, they are admitting to paying ransom while claiming it’s not ransom. But of course it’s ransom. But of course, what does it matter? These aren’t just impeachable offenses, they’re for which Obama can and should be prosecuted. And he knows no one has the balls to do it. So Obama gives us the finger.
The amusing thing is all of you who think Trump, even if he is everything you think he is. can save us from the bed we have made over decades. It’s exactly that lazy thinking that got us here. Enjoy it.
The quick fix. I believe it plays midnight to six a.m. on all the pay per view channels.