You Bet It's Scandalous: We Paid Iran a $400 Million Ransom for Prisoners

Yes, the United States really did bribe Iran for the release of four American prisoners. The Obama administration's denial is hogwash.

As Iran was releasing the four American hostages they were holding, the president's team was sending $400 million to the Iranians. It was a hostage payment in direct opposition to U.S. policy and it is an invitation to more hostage taking.

I know you've heard. I know you know I didn't pull that out of a hat. But I also want you to know it came from the low-key, unsensational Wall Street Journal. 

If there's any newspaper out there whose words are carved in stone, at least for me, it's the Journal's. I'm not saying these folks are forever error-free, but the WSJ is among the few newspapers in this modern age that still employ a staff of fact-checkers and use them scrupulously on every story. There is no paper I know better at connecting the dots on international and financial news stories.

According to the Journal in a Tuesday story, the Obama administration secretly sent the $400 million in cash to Iran around the same time the Middle Eastern country released Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian; former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati; Christian pastor Saeed Abedini; and Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari. The money, in Euros, Swiss francs and other foreign currencies, was airlifted in an unmarked cargo plane in January.

The Journal made it sound like a James Bond movie. "Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane in January, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward. The U.S. got the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said."

The administration, of course, denies this $400 million had anything to do with the prisoner release. Their excuse is, the money was the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement reached over a 1979 failed arms deal -- we gave them interest for a deal reached before the Ayatollah took control and seized Americans hostage. 

But the $400 million was exchanged in cash at the exact time the four Americans were released and let's not forget, President Obama forgot to tell Congress. In fact, he never mentioned the transfer of $400 million.

“With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well,” Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17 -- without disclosing a word of the $400 million cash payment.

Since the payoff, the intelligence arm of the Revolutionary Guard has arrested two more Iranian-Americans. Isn't this why we had a never-pay-ransom policy?

The $400 million was paid in foreign currency because any transaction with Iran in U.S. dollars is illegal under U.S. law. Sanctions also complicate Tehran’s access to global banks, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Administration officials said the Americans were exchanged for seven Iranians held or charged in the United States as a nuclear deal appeared imminent.

The nuclear deal signed by Iran, the U.S. and five other countries limits Iran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions. Republicans and Israeli leaders opposed the deal, but Obama made it official in January.

"We were right in January 2016 to describe the administration's $1.7 billion transfer to Iran as a ransom payment," Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill. said in a statement. "Paying ransom to kidnappers puts Americans even more at risk. While Americans were relieved by Iran's overdue release of illegally imprisoned American hostages, the White House's policy of appeasement has led Iran to illegally seize more American hostages, including Siamak Namazi, his father Baquer Namazi, and Reza Shahini."

Donald Trump wasted no time in responding to the WSJ report, and why wouldn't he? He blamed his Democratic rival.

"Our incompetent secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, was the one who started talks to give 400 million dollars, in cash, to Iran. Scandal!" Trump tweeted Wednesday morning.

In spite of the administration's protestations, it's hard to believe the United States didn't pay a ransom. It was a ransom:

A report by an Iranian news site close to the Revolutionary Guard, the Tasnim agency, said the cash arrived in Tehran’s Mehrabad airport on the same day the Americans departed. Revolutionary Guard commanders boasted at the time that the Americans had succumbed to Iranian pressure. “Taking this much money back was in return for the release of the American spies,” said Gen. Mohammad Reza Naghdi, commander of the Guard’s Basij militia, on state media.

A precedent-setting, secret, entirely illegal recall of U.S. policy.

It seems to me Obama administration officials have given Americans who fear the Iran nuclear agreement even more reason to fear it -- and to fear them. Frightening.

Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith