The State Department on Wednesday refused to confirm any of the “salacious” details about a reported $400 million cash payment to Iran, arguing only that it was not a ransom payment.
“Frankly other than, you know, some of these salacious details that they’re trying to put forth as to the transactions … there’s very little news to this,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said during a press briefing.
{mosads}Peppered with questions about the administration’s decision to provide the payment in cash — in a variety of different currencies — Toner said the administration vetted all its options at the time, and chose cash as the most efficient avenue in light of how disconnected Iran is from the global financial system.
But he repeatedly refused to go further, saying, “I’m not going to confirm the allegations that are made in this article.”
The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday detailed an airlift in January that delivered the cash to Iran at the same time that four American prisoners were released. It also coincided with the formal implementation of the Iran nuclear deal.
The payment, which the administration announced at the time, was the first part of a $1.7 billion settlement to resolve a dispute surrounding an arms deal signed just before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
But new details revealed by the Journal — including the fact that the payment was in cash and delivered in unmarked cargo planes — have led Republicans to argue that it was in fact a ransom payment to secure the prisoners.
Senior defense officials in Tehran have also described the payment as a ransom, according to local press reports.
“If true, this report confirms our longstanding suspicion that the administration paid a ransom in exchange for Americans unjustly detained in Iran,” Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said in a statement condemning the report as “another chapter in the ongoing saga of misleading the American people to sell this dangerous nuclear deal.”
Toner pushed back on the charge that the payment was a ransom.
The implementation of the Iran deal, the settlement payment and the release of the prisoners, he said, “were three very separate efforts,” although the timing was not entirely coincidental.
“I think what one can fairly say is that — and I think we acknowledged this at the time — is that our negotiations to reach the nuclear deal with Iran did open up enough space, if you will, for us to reach a resolution on other outstanding issues,” he said.
Pressed on the timing of the prisoners’ release, he said he “can’t answer conclusively” whether the American detainees were on a plane prior to the arrival of the payment.