Video purportedly showing US payment to Iran emerges
By Jim Sciutto and Ryan Browne
CNN
A new video emerged Friday that purportedly shows a US payment of $400 million worth of cash delivered to Iran on the day Tehran released several American prisoners in January. (SEE IT BY CLICKING HERE)
The revelation of an Iranian documentary that shows the money on pallets in a warehouse comes hours after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump walked back an earlier claim that he had seen tape of the delivery, acknowledging Friday morning that the footage he watched was actually the American captives arriving in Geneva.
Trump’s repeated reference to having seen the video was widely questioned, since at the time no such footage had been identified.
The discovery of the video from an Iranian documentary in January, which apparently shows footage of President Barack Obama, the prisoner release and cash on pallets, reignited the controversy over the US payment and Trump’s statements. The video narration claims that the cash was linked with the release.
The latest wrinkle is bound to fuel critics of the administration who have accused Obama of providing ransom to the Iranian government in exchange for the release of four US prisoners. A fifth American was released separately.
Trump initially claimed to have seen video of the cash being unloaded from a US aircraft in Iran and repeated the assertion on Thursday even though a campaign aide had told The Washington Post earlier that it was actually footage of a different event.
Trump then said via Twitter Friday that he had only seen the American prisoners arriving in Geneva, Switzerland.
Democratic vice presidential candidate and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine slammed Trump for his earlier claim, saying, “I have no idea what he’s talking about. It (the video) doesn’t exist. He might be thinking about Iran-Contra from like 35 years ago or something like this,” while appearing on CBS’ “This Morning.”
The footage Trump referred to featured a plane, while the new video from the Iranian documentary shows only the pallets stacked with cash, according to Iranian state television.
The January deal, well publicized at the time, was officially part of a $1.7 billion settlement involving a dispute dating back to a 1970s-era failed arms deal with the government of the Shah of Iran. US officials have said that the settlement and subsequent release of frozen Iranian assets was agreed to in order to avoid a potentially more costly international arbitration.
The Obama administration has vehemently denied any connection between the cash delivery and the release of the American prisoners.
“We announced these payments in January. Many months ago. They were not a secret,” Obama told reporters at the Pentagon Thursday.
“It was not a nefarious deal,” Obama said, adding, “We do not pay ransom for hostages.”
However, US officials, while denying a connection, have publicly admitted that the timing of the two transactions — US prisoners leaving Iran as hundreds of millions of dollars arrived — involved problematic optics.
Others have raised questions as to whether the release of the Americans was conditional upon the payment of the money and whether it encourages more questionable arrests by Iran of Americans living there.
Saeed Abedini, one of the US prisoners held by Iran, told Fox News that he and his fellow American prisoners were forced to wait at the airport for hours the night of their release.
Abedini said that an Iranian intelligence officer told him, “We are waiting for another plane and if that plane takes off then we are going to let you go.”
His story along with the video is bound to bolster the suspicions of the administration’s critics.
A US official told CNN that is was “unknowable” whether Iran would have freed the prisoners without the settlement payment.
Saeed Abedini, one of the US prisoners held by Iran, told Fox News that he and his fellow American prisoners were forced to wait at the airport for hours the night of their release.
Abedini said that an Iranian intelligence officer told him, “we are waiting for another plane and if that plane takes off then we are going to let you go.”
His story along with the video is bound to bolster the suspicions of the administration’s critics.
A US official told CNN that is was “unknowable” whether Iran would have freed the prisoners without the settlement payment.
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