National security expert Jim Hanson said on Wednesday that the $400 million in cash that was delivered to the Iranian government back in January was “absolutely a ransom” for the Americans held prisoner.
Appearing on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” Hanson, the Executive Vice President at Center for Security Policy and CounterJihad said, “In high stakes poker, there’s a saying if you don’t know who the chump is at the table, it’s you. Well, unfortunately for us, Obama and Kerry are those chumps.” (RELATED: Report: US Secretly Sent Iran $400 Million In Cash The Same Day Prisoners Were Released)
“And they have been played by every world leader that they’ve come in contact with. They have made every American now a target for a tyrant who knows they can get a payoff. It’s a horrible situation. They made us demonstrably less safe.”
Natl security expert Jim Hanson: Cash to Iran was absolutely a ransom & the Obama admin showed they can be rolledhttps://t.co/e3u00WRiEq
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) August 3, 2016
Hanson went on to argue that the $400 million in euros, Swiss francs and other currencies was “absolutely a ransom. I mean, I don’t know any other reason why you would stack Swiss francs and euros on pallets on put them on an unmarked plane to fly them to Iran.”
“It makes you wonder whether the Iran deal itself was written using cut out letters from a newspaper,” Hanson said. “I think the problem with this is that the Obama administration has demonstrated that they can be rolled. They paid cash and released terrorists for Bowe Bergdahl, we paid cash and released terrorist financiers for to get this deal done, who knows what they did with the Iranian sailors.”
On January 12, 2016 ten American sailors were captured by Iran for 15 hours.
Then on January 16 — the same day as the cash payment — four Americans including Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian were released.
Natl security expert Jim Hanson: Cash to Iran was absolutely a ransom & the Obama admin showed they can be rolledhttps://t.co/e3u00WRiEq
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) August 3, 2016
State Department’s spokesman John Kirby has denied that the $400 million in cash was a ransom payment.