When it comes to the Iran cash drop, is ransom by another name “leverage?” But he denied it was a ransom payment, saying it was done to maintain “maximum leverage” over Iran until the Americans were released.
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“We actually had diplomatic negotiations and conversations with Iran for the first time in several decades”, Obama said August 5, meaning “our ability to clear accounts on a number of different issues at the same time converged”. “The truth matters and the president owes the American people an explanation”, Sen.
Meanwhile, a US State Department video of a press briefing about secret US-Iran nuclear talks was deliberately edited but there is no evidence to suggest the cut was meant to hide information, a US spokesman said on Thursday after further details were released of an investigation into the incident.
TIED AT THE HIP: The Republican Party took aim at Senate candidate Russ Feingold, D-Middleton, Thursday following emerging details on the Obama administration’s $400 million payment to Iran.
The $400 million, dispatched to Tehran in a carefully choreographed exchange, was the down payment of $1.7 million in compensation the administration agreed to pay to Iran to settle an old weapons debt.
Three of the five prisoners, including Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief; Saeed Abedini, a pastor from Idaho and Amir Hekmati, a former US Marine from Flint, Michigan, as well as some family members, were part of a prisoner exchange that followed the lifting of most global sanctions against Iran following a nuclear deal in 2015.
Both US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have denied that the payment was ransom for the release of the prisoners or tied to the Iran nuclear deal.
“We were able to conclude multiple strands of diplomacy within a 24-hour period including implementation of the nuclear deal, prisoner talks, and the settlement of an outstanding Hague tribunal claim that saved American taxpayers potentially billions of dollars”, U.S. State Department spokesperson John Kirby said during a press briefing.
Nope, no quid pro quo here, Kirby insisted. A few things we won’t tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. “If a cash payment is contingent on a hostage release, it’s a ransom”.
“Senator Feingold has not only served in the President’s State (Department), he has repeatedly stood behind President Obama’s failed foreign policy”, the Wisconsin GOP said in its statement.
“Already under fire for lying to the American people about her illegal email server, Clinton is continuing to align herself with an administration that has continually lied to Americans as well”, Trump spokesman Jason Miller said. “We do not pay ransom for hostages”. As a result, he explained, the U.S.
The money was delivered on January 17, just one day after a landmark nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers took effect. Long-standing USA policy has prohibited making concessions to hostage-takers. “This was a negotiation over, I think, a 1979 sale”. “I’m against it, and would never support something like that”.
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She added, “Now Iran was going to release hostages that we very much liked released”.
