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. Although the US government maintains that the payment was part of separate settlement related to a decades-old arms deal, many critics believe it amounted to a ransom.
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For now, we are going by Trump’s own statement, backed up by Hicks’ statement, that he was referring to a different video – the widely aired footage that shows the hostages being released, without any money being transferred.
Trump argued that the $400 million payment gave the perception that the US paid for the hostages’ freedom.
The White House insists there was no quid pro quo, that the timing was coincidence and that the money was owed to Iran in any event.
Hours after attending his first security briefing, Trump spills out secrets to gain political mileage Presidential nominee Donald Trump has described watching a “secret video” of Iranian officials unloading money from a plane, hours after receiving his security clearance.
Moreover, The Wall Street Journal, which this week reported previously unknown details of the payment, said the cash was flown to Tehran.
“And you know, it was interesting, because a tape was made, right, you saw that with the airplane coming in?”
“They have a ideal tape, obviously done by a government camera, and the tape is of the people taking the money off the plane”, Trump said.
“I’m not sure if there was confusion”, Manafort said of the video. And the money coming off, I guess, right?’ the Republican candidate asked a capacity crowd in a Portland, Maine theater.
Trump certainly makes it sound as if there’s video footage of the cash being hustled off a plane, and that he’s seen that footage.
“He might be thinking about Iran Contra from, like, 35 years ago or something like this”, Kaine said in an interview with CBS News, noting Trump had recently misspoken and identified Kaine as the former governor of New Jersey, not Virginia.
“Where that plane landed, top secret, they don’t have a lot of paparazzi, you know”, he continued. “Because they want to embarrass our country, and they want to embarrass our president”, he added.
Why did the USA government authorise the transfer of $400m (£305m) in cash to Iran at the same moment that four American captives were released by the Iranian government? Trump said in Florida.
Whether the story will now die is hard to say, The Trump campaign acknowledged its candidate was mistaken about the video Thursday afternoon. “The notion that we would somehow start now, in this high-profile way… and say to them that we don’t pay ransom defies logic”.
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Trump is now saying that the video is of the hostage plan, the same video everyone else has seen by now.
