Chip Bok's Bokbluster

Earlier this month he WSJ reported that the Obama administration shipped Iran a pallet of foreign cash worth $400 million. President Obama scolded the press for asking if the delivery of the unmarked bills, in an unmarked plane, in the middle of the night was ransom.

You’ve probably seen his four step reply:

1) The payment was old news.

2) It was Iran’s money.

3) It’s illegal to trade dollars with Iran.

4) We don’t pay ransom.

Then he mocked reporters by saying, it “defies logic” that we would pay ransom. He also said the story “reads like a spy novel.”

So it does.

For good measure State Department spokesman John Kirby tweeted:

“Reports of link between prisoner release & payment to Iran are completely false.”

So the WSJ reporters, Jay Solomon and Carol E. Lee, dug a little deeper and learned that the payment was “specifically timed to the release of several American prisoners held in Iran.” The money was loaded onto an Iranian cargo plane in Geneva, Switzerland. And it wasn’t released until a plane departing Tehran with the prisoners was “wheels up.”

It’s Not Ransom. It’s Leverage. Or Not.

Based on the new information Kirby was asked by a reporter:

Q: “In basic English, you are saying you wouldn’t give [Iran] the 400 million in cash until the prisoners were released, correct?”

A: “That’s correct,” Kirby responded.

Iranians call it “ransom” (they’re already collecting more ransom chips). Kirby calls it “leverage.”

Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said, “I never used the world leverage” – leaving Kirby hanging out to dry.