On Tuesday the Wall Street Journal reported on a secret payment os $400 million in cash in an unmarked plane to the Iranian regime in January. The payment coincided with the release of four detained Americans.
The secret payment was captured on video.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.
Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.
The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
On Wednesday morning State Department Spokesperson John Kirby lied and said the Obama administration had already talked about this payment.
He lied.
John Kirby: As the president said at the time. And we spoke about this at the time that now that the prisoners released, now with the Iran deal done, it made no sense for us to drag out this claim so we settled this.
Bill Hemmer: You said you spoke about that at the time, right?
John Kirby: I did, absolutely. I did, Secretary Kerry did, the president did.
Bill Hemmer: February 17th… There was no mention of a cash payment that day by the president.
John Kirby: The only thing new in this article that I’ve seen in the Wall Street Journal is some color hear about some payment schedule itself… We saved the American taxpayers billions of dollars… This compromise was actually done to the taxpayer’s benefit…
Bill Hemmer: But this is clear that this was not made public. And it appears it was kept secret. And it appears, sir, that it smells. When you see video at night of an unmarked jet with pallets of Euros and Swiss francs being unloaded. It looks bad and it smells.
John Kirby: What I can tell you is the president spoke about this in January, I spoke about this, what happened here and why it happened.
Bill Hemmer: …The Iranian press reported on this as a ransom payment. Are they wrong?
John Kirby: It’s absolutely wrong, completely wrong. Look, you can believe us who talked about this on camera and on the record since January or you can believe an unnamed anonymous defense official from Iran.
Sadly, John, the Iranian regime is more honest than you.
What a disgrace.
Via America’s Newsroom:
