Since the Wall Street Journal revealed that Iran received $400 million in an “advance payout” just as four high-profile American prisoners were released, the State Department has denied the massive sum was a quid-pro-quo payment—or a ransom.
But on Thursday night, the Journal reported that the State Department would not allow the Iranians to take control of the $400 million until the prisoners, including a Washington Post reporter, were safely in the air and on their way to Geneva.
Just last week, State Department spokesperson said that the two operations were completely separate, and that they just happened to coincide, with both State Department teams completing their projects on the same day.
We owed the money to Iran, they continued. It was just a “first payout”—in several separate foreign currencies, and in a very specific amount.
Now, it’s fairly clear, from the WSJ‘s story, that the State Department was deliberately holding back on information. Teams negotiating both sides of the deal— the payout and the release—did, in fact, coordinate with each other, as well as with the Swiss air patrol, which held the money and transported the prisoners.
It is possible, of course, that the two teams were coordinating simply to make sure the Iranians stayed true to their word—holding the prize until the Americans could be sure the Iranians wouldn’t hold back. But if that’s the case, the State Department was still deliberately cagey in saying the two teams worked in total isolation from each other.
Even Secretary of State John Kerry’s excuse that the planes were delayed because a passenger’s wife was left off the plane’s manifest now seems deliberately contrived.