WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The Wall Street Journal reported earlier in the day that the Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four US citizens detained in the country.
"If true, this report confirms our longstanding suspicion that the administration paid a ransom in exchange for Americans unjustly detained in Iran," House Speaker Paul Ryan said in his statement. “It would also mark another chapter in the ongoing saga of misleading the American people to sell this dangerous nuclear deal.”
Senator Ted Cruz rejected administration claims that the payment was not ransom for the prisoners, who included Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian.
"The revelation that the Obama administration ransomed the Americans being unjustly detained by the Islamic Republic of Iran with $400 million in cash is only the most recent piece of evidence that the so-called nuclear deal with the mullahs is fundamentally illegitimate," Cruz said in his statement.
The Obama administration maintains that the $400 million payment was part of a settlement of longstanding financial claims dating back to the 1979 Iranian revolution and that the timing was simply a coincidence.
