Seizing on new details about a $400 million cash payment by the U.S.to Iran as American detainees were being freed in January, Trump said at a Florida rally on Wednesday that Iran had released video of people taking money from the plane to embarrass the U.S.
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He appears to have mistaken video footage of a plane in Geneva for what he portrayed as secret Iranian government tapes of the handover of $400 million by the U.S.in Iran.
Obama said that at the time his administration had explained that Iran had taken claims before an worldwide tribunal and, because of litigation risks, the United States made a $1.7 billion settlement with the country to resolve a decades-old arms deal dispute following legal advice and suggestions.
Donald Trump has been describing in detail at voter rallies a shocking video made by the Iranian military of piles of United States money on pallets on a airport tarmac.
What Trump had actually seen in news reports was video of three American prisoners who Iran had released arriving in Geneva, Switzerland.
Iran might have a video of America’s $400 million cash payment to the regime after all – even though Donald Trump backed off such claims early Friday amid intense criticism. And they have a flawless tape. “The tape is of the people taking the money off the plane, right?” “Some of you may recall we announced these payments in January – many months ago”.
And yet on Thursday, with the ink barely dry on his spokeswoman’s explanation in the press, Mr Trump began to repeat his claim all over again. Trump continued. “And they have a ideal tape, obviously a government camera, and the tape is of people taking money off the plane”.
The payment has sparked questions over whether the Obama administration violated its own policy of not paying for hostages.
TRUMP, at a Daytona Beach, Florida, rally Wednesday: “I’ll never forget the scene this morning”. So you know I’m just going to rise above this stuff, and I’m not going to get involved in some sort of petty back and forth, I see no objective in doing that. “With the airplane coming in … and the money coming off, I guess”, he said while addressing supporters in Portland, Me.
The U.S. indeed paid that money to Tehran in January, in a publicly announced settlement of a decades-old global arbitration case dating back to when Iranians paid Washington for military equipment they never received. “Because they want to embarrass our country”. They want to embarrass our country.
Indeed, Trump clarified in a tweet Friday morning. While Clinton did in fact initiate negotiations with Iran related to its nuclear program, she did not participate in discussions related to releasing the American prisoners.
Trump, meanwhile continued to blame the US President Barack Obama and his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who is now the Democratic presidential nominee for the current instability in the Middle East.
“They have been told these are classified briefings”, Obama said.
This is nearly redundant in a way because we know that the Iranians viewed Obama’s dirty smuggled cash as a ransom payment.
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He pointed to Trump’s recent criticism of Kaine, who Trump said in a late-July news conference “did a awful job in New Jersey” – despite Kaine being a governor and senator from Virginia, not New Jersey.
