State Department Admits Obama Lied - $400 Million Payment To Iran Was Contingent On Prisoner Release | Zero Hedge

State Department Admits Obama Lied - $400 Million Payment To Iran Was Contingent On Prisoner Release

If you define "ransom" as "a payment exchanged contingent on the release of a hostage" then you find yourself forced to admit that President Obama lied last week when he aggressively denied (and was irked at the question) that he paid Iran a $400 million ransom for the return of 4 hostages.  Today, The State Department's spokesperson John Kirby told the truth that the Iran payment was contingent on the prisoner release... but of course spun this 'ransom' payment as masterful diplomacy "deliberately leveraging the moment."

As Bloomberg reports,

The U.S. withheld a $400 million cash payment to Iran earlier this year as leverage to ensure that American prisoners would be released as the country had promised, State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

“We were able to conclude multiple strands of diplomacy within a 24-hour period,” Kirby told reporters in Washington on Thursday. “We deliberately leveraged that moment.”

Kirby was responding to a report in the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. wouldn’t let Iran take control of the money -- which the country was owed as part of a $1.7 billion settlement over a long-running dispute -- until a plane carrying the American prisoners had left Iran in January.

Disputes over the timing of the payment have fueled criticism of the administration’s nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic. While the U.S. has said talks over the release of the prisoners were held separately from last year’s negotiations on the payment and the nuclear deal, Kirby’s comments represented an acknowledgment that those two matters eventually converged.

Previously, US official stated on the record that the $400 million payment to Iran was separate from the hostages. This is what State Dept. spokesman John Kirby told the WSJ two weeks ago:

Cont......