2. White House denies cash-for-hostages deal
White House says plane full of $400M in cash wasn’t related to American hostage release
WASHINGTON — Revelations that a plane carrying $400 million in cash arrived in Iran as the regime released U.S. hostages prove President Obama engaged in a cash-for-hostages deal, Republicans charged Wednesday.
Revelations that a plane carrying $400 million in cash arrived in Iran as the regime released U.S. hostages prove President Obama engaged in a cash-for-hostages deal, Republicans charged Wednesday.
That detail, reported in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, reignited a months-old debate about the Iran nuclear deal.
“This report makes plain what the administration can no longer deny: This was a ransom payment to Iran for U.S. hostages,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said in a letter to the State and Justice Departments.
“Iran sent American hostages back on the same day it received the cash. Sounds a lot like a ransom payment to me,” said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, RW is., hedged his criticism with the words “if true” but said the report would “mark another chapter in the ongoing saga of misleading the American people to sell this dangerous nuclear deal.”
The payment was disclosed in January, when it was wrapped into a nuclear deal in which the United States lifted sanctions in exchange for Iran’s agreement to roll back its nuclear program and open sites to international inspections. The extraordinary method of making the payment — via dollars converted into euros, Swiss francs and other currencies, loaded on pallets, then flown on an unmarked cargo plane — was disclosed in The Wall Street
Journal on Wednesday, launching new protests from Capitol Hill.
In a side deal to the nuclear agreement, the United States agreed to a settlement of a 37year-old dispute pending in an international tribunal. Iran made a $400 million deposit for military equipment before the Islamic revolution in 1979, but the equipment was never delivered. The White House said the payment was not directly related to the release of five U.S. hostages, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, which officials characterized as a goodwill gesture by the Iranians.
Wednesday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest denied a quid pro quo. “We would not, we have not, we will not, pay a ransom to secure the release of U.S. citizens. That’s a fact,” he said.