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Comment: There is a lot of hubbub being made over the story of the U.S. payments to Iran that were agreed during the nuclear talks at the beginning of the year. The U.S. had long owed money to Iran over weapons that were bought but never delivered from the 1979 revolution. The US broke ties, and the money remained owed. Once the talks began Iran insisted the repayment be made as a part of the deal and even agreed to a significantly lower settlement of the amount they were due.

Money was payed to Iran, but rags like the Free Beacon insist on turning this non-issue into some sort of fantastical ransom, or some other equally farcical explanation.


The Obama administration is withholding from Congress details about how $1.3 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds was delivered to Iran, according to conversations with lawmakers, who told the Washington Free Beacon that the administration is now stonewalling an official inquiry into the matter.

The Departments of State, Treasury, and Justice have all rebuffed a congressional probe into the circumstances surrounding the $1.3 billion payment to Iran, which is part of an additional $400 million cash payout that occurred just prior to the release of several U.S. hostages and led to accusations that the administration had paid Iran a ransom.


Comment: The ridiculousness of this ransom claim is so absurd that the New York Times had to do damage control:

From their article, The Fake $400 Million Iran 'Ransom' Story:
The first thing to know about the latest controversy over the Iran nuclear deal is that the Obama administration did not pay $400 million in "ransom" to secure the release of three American detainees. Yet that's the story critics are peddling in another attempt to discredit an agreement that has done something remarkable — halted a program that had put Iran within striking distance of producing a nuclear weapon.

The truth is that the administration withheld the payment to ensure Iran didn't renege on its promise to free three detainees — a Washington Post journalist, a Marine veteran and a Christian pastor. That's pragmatic diplomacy not capitulation.

The controversy erupted whenThe Wall Street Journal reported that the United States delivered $400 million in cash to Iranian officials after Tehran released the American detainees. It has provided an irresistible opportunity for Iran-bashing and Obama-bashing.

The Obama administration has admitted in recent days that the $400 million cash delivery to Iran was part of an effort to secure the release of these American hostages, raising further questions on Capitol Hill about White House efforts to suppress these details from the public.

The $400 million was part of a $1.7 billion legal settlement reached with Iran earlier this year. Congressional inquiries into how this money reached Iran are failing to get answers. The State and Treasury Departments declined on Tuesday to answer a series of questions from the Free Beacon about the method in which U.S. taxpayer funds were paid to Iran.

The administration is also withholding key details about the payment from leading members of Congress, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Mike Lee (R., Utah), who launched an inquiry into the matter earlier this month. The Departments of State, Treasury, and Justice all failed to respond to the inquiry by Monday's deadline, according to congressional sources tracking the matter.

"The already bizarre circumstances surrounding the $1.7 billion payment to the Islamic Republic have only gotten stranger in the weeks since we learned of the $400 million in cash that was sent to the Iranian regime last January 16th," Cruz said to the Free Beacon. "If this payment was, as the Obama administration insists, a straightforward settlement of an old debt that it would have cost America more to contest, why all the secrecy?"

The State Department said it does not know how the remaining $1.3 billion was transferred or to whom it was transferred. Cruz described this disclosure as "confounding."

"It is even more confounding that the State Department spokesman claimed Monday not to know how or to whom the residual $1.3 billion was transferred, although he does know the transaction happened," Cruz said. "That kind of money doesn't just transfer itself to a rogue regime still under heavy U.S. sanctions for its sponsorship of terrorism. Someone in our government must have the answers the American people deserve."