“The plane I saw on television was the hostage plane in Geneva, Switzerland, not the plane carrying $400 million in cash going to Iran!” he tweeted Friday.
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Donald Trump backed off a false claim Friday morning, admitting he had not seen a video of a $400 million payment being unloaded from a U.S. plane in Iran.
Mr Obama said non-payment of the owed money posed a “significant litigation risk” that could have cost the United States billions of dollars.
Speaking at a news conference Thursday, President Barack Obama said that the payment was not ransom for the release of the US hostages, pointing out that the transfer was announced in January, a day after implementation of the USA nuclear deal with Iran. “Maybe that’s what he’s doin” with this – you know, this bogus video claim”, Kaine added.
The latest wrinkle is bound to fuel critics of the administration who have accused Obama of providing ransom to the Iranian government in exchange for the release of four U.S. prisoners. A fifth American was released separately.
On the campaign trail this week, the Republican nominee has been dramatically describing a video that he says shows the USA paying off Iran as part of a deal to release US sailors from Iranian custody.
Democratic vice presidential candidate and Virginia Sen.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate, echoed those attacks during an interview on NBC’s “TODAY” on Friday morning, accusing the administration of having “endangered the lives of every American on the world stage”.
“In this exchange, the Iranians demand the entire four-hundred million in addition to $1.3 billion in deferred interest”, the narrator says.
Obama said the only new development in this was the handing over of the money in cash, and in foreign currencies as the U.S. has no banking ties with Iran.
The settlement stemmed from a claim filed by Iran with an global tribunal in 1981 that related to a $400 million payment made by the government of the US-backed Shah of Iran to purchase military equipment in 1970s. “We were completely open with everyone again, and it’s interesting to me how this is becoming a story again”, Obama said.
When asked if he believed the USA government paid a “ransom” to free him and the other Americans, Abedini didn’t provide a direct answer.
“We announced these payments in January. Many months ago. They were not a secret”, Obama told a press conference at the Pentagon.
The statement echoed one made by White House spokesman Josh Earnest earlier, who said that the only people arguing that the cash was a ransom payment are “right wingers in Iran and (U.S.) Republicans who don’t like the (nuclear) deal”. He said the payment had to be in cash because strict financial sanctions precluded other methods. His political rise began during the 2012 campaign, when he insisted that Obama release his birth certificate, questioning the President’s American citizenship.
So while that payment went through at the same time, US officials say it was unrelated to the Americans being freed.
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His story along with the video is bound to bolster the suspicions of the administration’s critics.
