Obama Inc. just swaps out one lie with another when the previous lie gets exposed. There's always a technicality as a fallback position.
Sure, we used foreign money from foreign banks sent on an unmarked cargo plane to Iran, but it wasn't a secret. Yes we delayed payment until the hostages were released, but it wasn't a ransom.
The Obama administration admitted Thursday that a $400 million cash payment to Iran in January was contingent on the release of American prisoners being held in the country – while still denying that the payment was a ransom.
However, Kirby said that the U.S. withheld the cash delivery until Iran made good on its promise to release the prisoners.
“In basic English you are saying you wouldn’t give [Iran] the 400 million in cash until the prisoners were released, correct?” asked a reporter at Thursday’s State Department briefing.
“That’s correct,” Kirby responded.
“What the State Department admitted today was the dictionary definition of a ransom payment and a complete contradiction of what they were saying just two weeks ago,” RNC Spokesman Michael Short said in a statement. “It’s time for the Obama White House to drop the charade and admit it paid a ransom to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.”
"Reports of link between prisoner release & payment to Iran are completely false," Kirby tweeted at the time.
To summarize, Kirby just admitted what he had denied. And the new fallback position is that the payment and the release of the hostages was linked, but that the negotiations were conducted separately, therefore it's not a ransom.
Alex, I'll take excuses no one could possibly believe for $500.