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 USA plane in Iran.
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The issue arose after The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the US sent $400 million to Iran at the same time that four American prisoners were released by Iran’s government. The article, the first to give a detailed account to the money transfer, pointed out that this settlement happened on the same day Iran freed four American prisoner, causing critics to accuse the administration of paying a ransom for their release.
In January, Mr. Obama referred to the resolution of the Y 1979 arms dispute without disclosing the $400-M cash payment by saying that “with the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well”.
His reversal comes just days after he said at a Florida campaign rally that video released by Iran showed people taking money from the plane in order to embarrass the United States, according to The Washington Post.
After those comments, the Trump campaign told The Washington Post that the tape Mr. Trump had seen was b-roll footage that’s been labeled as American hostages landing in Geneva in January after being released from prison.
The video Trump saw was not shot in Iran, but Switzerland: The hostages-journalist Jason Rezaian; former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati; Christian pastor Saeed Abedini; and Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari-are shown disembarking a plane at night in Geneva. They want to embarrass our president.
‘I mean, who would ever think that they would be taking all of this money off of the plane, and then providing us with the tape?’ the Republican presidential nominee asked. Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson said on CNN she misspoke when she blamed Obama for the 2004 death of the Muslim-American soldier, Humayun Khan, during the Iraq war.
“They have a ideal tape, done by obviously a government camera”, Trump said. It’s only for one reason.
Kaine said video of the cash payment to Iran doesn’t exist and is a “bogus video claim”. It was a tape that was a ideal angle – nice and steady.
What’s most unbelievable about all of it, though, is the detail with which Trump described the tape and its origins.
In a tweet Friday, Trump said this is indeed what he saw.
“It’s a military tape”.
Trump moving to correct a mistake will also allow him to return the focus where he wants, which is attacking the record of President Obama and Hillary Clinton. However, a campaign spokesman could not explain why the images he described did not match the Fox News video.
This week, Trump, in a rare moment of agreement with the rest of the GOP, has repeatedly made claims that the USA paid Iran $400 million in exchange for hostages, violating this country’s longstanding policy of not paying ransoms.
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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. Contrary to what Trump said about the video he claimed to have seen, this video was not shot in Iran, it did not show the exchange of cash, it was not “top secret”, it was not “a military tape”, and it was not “provided by Iran”.
