The Obama administration said the timing of the payment and the release of the Americans were coincidental and that the money was a down payment on a settlement of a longstanding legal dispute with Iran.
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Instead, the campaign said in an email late Wednesday that Trump was simply referring to footage “shown on all major broadcasts this morning“.
The only thing is that the video actually shows the three American prisoners landing in Geneva after the transfer.
In reality, what Trump saw was stock footage of another plane that was being used by cable news to report on the Iran payment story.
Donald Trump said Friday he didn’t see video on TV of a plane carrying $400 million in cash to Iran, a rare reversal of comments he made on the campaign trail earlier this week. And even if they had, it is unlikely either candidate would have been shown a video like the one Trump described.
“Most Americans are reeling this week with the news that the Obama administration delivered $400 million in cash to the mullahs in Iran on the very day that they released four hostages”, Pence said.
On Thursday, Trump repeated that he saw such a video during a rally in Portland, Maine. The footage is labelled “January 17”, the day of the release of the US citizens and of the announcement of the $400 million payment.
On Tuesday, it was revealed that the usa had secretly paid Iran the money in January, around the same time four Americans were released in Tehran.
The Trump campaign was quick to clarify, with spokeswoman Hope Hicks saying they were referencing public footage. “Right? It’s a military tape; it’s a tape that was a flawless angle, nice and steady, nobody getting nervous because they’re gonna be shot because they’re shooting a picture of money pouring off a plane”.
Alarms are being raised on the left and the right today that the tape Trump’s talking about here, which no one else has seen – and of which he says, outright, “I don’t think you’ve heard this anywhere but here” – might be something that he viewed in his first intelligence briefing for presidential candidates. “How do you do that?” he said at a campaign rally.
“A tape was made, you saw that?”
“When I asked them why you don’t let us go – the plane was there, pilot was there, everyone was ready that we leave the country”. A United States government plane waited nearby to bring back to the USA the men released from imprisonment in Iran the day before. Kaine said Trump must have confused him with Tom Kean, who was New Jersey’s governor until 1990.
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On Wednesday and Thursday, Trump repeatedly discussed watching a video of a $400 million cash payment “pouring off of a plane”. “The reason that we had to give them cash is precisely because we are so strict in maintaining sanctions and we do not have a banking relationship with Iran that we couldn’t send them a check and we could not wire the money”, Obama said.
