WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department says a $400 million cash payment to Iran was contingent on the release of American prisoners.
Spokesman John Kirby says negotiations over the United States’ returning Iranian money from a decades-old account was conducted separately from the prisoner talks. But he says the U.S. withheld delivery of the cash as leverage until the U.S. citizens had left Iran.
Both events occurred Jan. 17.
Kirby spoke after The Wall Street Journal reported that the departures of the crisscrossing planes were linked.
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Reagan traded arms for hostages and he’s a saint in the eyes of the GOP world.
This seems less craven and far more transparent.
Soooo…
The prisoners were ransom for the cash, rather than the cash being ransom for the prisoners…
So… The “weak, feckless” Obama, that no nation respects, got a hostile nation to pay us ransom?
Republican minds… blown!
I once returned a hammer to Home Depot for a refund.
And I can assure you, Home Depot was not paying ransom for the hammer.
They were simply returning my money.
Of course, they did insist on me returning the hammer.
Oddly enough, most financial arrangements work that way.
Ollie North: I am glad that Liberals now follow my advice.