The Obama administration has been scrambling to explain away the $400 million in cash it sent to Iran on the same day in January that four American hostages were released by the terror-sponsoring state.
Obama claimed the money wasn’t ransom, but, as Rudy Giuliani said, “You’d have to have IQ of minus two, not to realize he just lied.”
Now one of the freed hostages is speaking out and he’s telling a different story than the administration about what happened that night.
On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “The Intelligence Report with Trish Regan,” Saeed Abedini, one of the four hostages released from Iran back in January, stated that on the night he was freed, his captors told him they were waiting on another plane to arrive before letting him go.
Abedini said, “I just remember the night that we’d been in a[n] airport, just take hours and hours there. And I asked one of the…police that was with us, that, why are you not letting us to go to the…plane? And he told me we are waiting for another plane, and if that plane take off, then we’re going to let you go.”
He added, “[T]hey told us you’re going to be there for 20 minutes. But it took like hours and hours. We slept at the airport, and when I asked them why you don’t let us go, because the plane was there, pilot was there, everyone was ready that we leave the country, they said we are waiting for another plane, and until that plane doesn’t come, we never let you go.”
Why else would the Iranians be holding the prisoners until another mysterious plane arrived?
At the time Iranians even said the money was ransom and a BBC Persia reporter seems to have found Iranian footage of the pallets of cash from a report about the hostage release in February:
Doc on #Iran TV, Feb15, shows pallets of cash, says this was just part of the “expensive price” to release Americans pic.twitter.com/ztTvER3tvT
— Hadi Nili (@HadiNili) August 4, 2016
From the beginning Iran has said the $400 million was ransom for their prisoners and they’re already trying to leverage new captives for cash, according to the Wall Street Journal’s original report.
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.
Among the Americans currently being held are an energy executive named Siamak Namazi and his 80-year old father, Baqer, according to U.S. and Iranian officials. Iran’s judiciary spokesman last month confirmed Tehran had arrested the third American, believed to be a San Diego resident named Reza “Robin” Shahini.
Friends and family of the Namazis believe the Iranians are seeking to increase their leverage to force another prisoner exchange or cash payment in the final six months of the Obama administration.
Obama has obliterated our policy of not negotiating with terrorists (anyone remember Bowe Bergdahl?) thereby putting Americans abroad and our national security at risk. I truly can’t wait until his presidency is dumped in the dustbin of history where it belongs.
What do you think – ransom or coincidence? Tell us your thoughts on the $400 million in cash Obama handed to the Iranians in the comments section below!
