GOP chairman Reince Priebus released a statement on Wednesday tearing into the Obama administration after a new report shows they withheld money from the Iranian government until they released their American prisoners.
The report, coming from The Wall Street Journal, found that the administration would not let the Iranians have possession of the money until the plane carrying three Americans that had been jailed in Iran left, which essentially proves that the payment was indeed a ransom payment. The Obama administration had provided the money through an airplane carrying $400 million in foreign currency due to sanctions on the Iranian regime.
In light of this report, Priebus slammed President Barack Obama.
“It’s time for the Obama White House to drop the charade and admit it paid a $400 million ransom to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism,” Priebus said in a statement released on the GOP’s official website. “President Obama has foolishly put a price on the head of every American abroad and it should be no surprise that Iran has since detained more U.S. citizens. Hillary Clinton’s support for this dangerous blunder shows once again she does not have the judgement to be president.”
Obama and his sycophants in the media have attempted to spin the payment as being a part of a failed arms deal in 1979, but former CIA agent Phil Houston has pointed out in LawNewz that Obama never denied that the failed arms deal was a payment was a prerequisite toward freeing the Americans imprisoned in Iran. The Journal‘s latest report basically confirms that it was.
As The Daily Wire has previously explained, it’s been painfully obvious from the get-go that Obama was lying about the payment not being ransom. Iran clearly viewed it as a ransom payment and gloated about it, pastor Saeed Abedini has said that he was told by an Iranian official that they weren’t allowed to leave another plane arrived, and Obama has shown time and again that he’s lied about the Iran deal and has even paid ransom to Iran before.
Not only did Obama’s ransom payment clearly violate the law, it also has provided Iran with more cash to funnel to its terror proxies like Hezbollah, and the administration has now put a price on the head of Americans, emboldening terror regimes like Iran to abduct and jail Americans knowing that they can get a serious haul in return.