Here are the elements.
Obama dispatched $400 million in foreign bills in an unmarked cargo plan coinciding with the release of the hostages. The White House claims it wasn't a ransom payment. Iran says it was. And one of the hostages says that they were held until another plane arrived.
Abedini said he and the others waited a full night in the airport. According to police, they were waiting for another plane to arrive.
“They told us ‘you’re going to be there for 20 minutes, but it took like hours and hours,’” Abedini said. “We slept at the airport.”
Abedini said the plane and pilot were there, and everyone was ready to go, but they didn’t leave until 10 a.m. the next day. They eventually flew to the U.S. in the plane that had been sitting at the airport overnight.
This is almost redundant in a way because we know that the Iranians viewed Obama's dirty smuggled cash as a ransom payment. Which means that they would have treated it as one.
Obama Inc. is reduced to arguing that the Iranians may have viewed it as a ransom payment, but they didn't. Which is utterly meaningless. It doesn't matter what you believe or claim to believe, but what the criminals and terrorists see as the arrangement.
If the terrorists see it as paying ransom and act accordingly, it becomes a distinction without a difference.