August 5, 2016, 1:16 am
How sad a spectacle to see Americans defending that shameful $400 million tribute to Iran.
Barack Obama might well have been right in saying this week that Donald Trump wasn’t qualified to be president.
But there is a problem — Obama isn’t qualified to make that judgement, and frankly with the revelations about his actions in supplicating America to the Iranian mullahs this week, it’s time to begin talking about what the personal consequences should be to himself and his team for what they’ve done.
Specifically at issue is the story, first reported this week by Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, that Obama secured the release of four Americans held hostage by the Iranians by flying in $400 million in grease-money to buy them back.
Apparently it was so much of a quid pro quo that perhaps the most famous of the four, Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, told the Fox Business Network Thursday that he and the others were made to wait at an airport for hours before release and when they asked about what the holdup to their release was, it was clearly the arrival of the money.
“[T]hey told us you’re going to be there for 20 minutes,” he told FBN’s Trish Regan. “But it took like hours and hours. We slept at the airport, and when I asked them why you don’t let us go, because the plane was there, pilot was there, everyone was ready that we leave the country, they said we are waiting for another plane, and until that plane doesn’t come, we never let you go.”
The plane finally did come. When it did, reports say it contained wooden pallets of paper currency — Swiss francs, Euros, and other notes totaling $400 million. The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. federal government secured the money from the central banks in the Netherlands and Switzerland, then flew it into Tehran — clearly to satisfy a condition of the release of Abedini and the others.
One would imagine that it would be a lot easier for the federal government to simply wire the money; if nothing else, there would be no reason to prolong the agony of the hostages at the airport.
Whole story is at: http://spectator.org/iransom/