WASHINGTON — The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.

Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.

The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The settlement, which resolved claims before an international tribunal in The Hague, also coincided with the formal implementation that same weekend of the landmark nuclear agreement reached between Tehran, the U.S. and other global powers the summer before.

“With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well,” President Barack Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17 — without disclosing the $400 million cash payment.

Senior U.S. officials denied any link between the payment and the prisoner exchange. They say the way the various strands came together simultaneously was coincidental, not the result of any quid pro quo.

“As we’ve made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim…were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “Not only were the two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of The Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years.”

But U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to show they had gained something tangible.

Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas and a fierce foe of the Iran nuclear deal, accused President Barack Obama of paying “a $1.7 billion ransom to the ayatollahs for U.S. hostages.”

“This break with longstanding U.S. policy [not to] put a price on the head of Americans, and has led Iran to continue its illegal seizures” of Americans, he said.

Since the cash shipment, the intelligence arm of the Revolutionary Guard has arrested two more Iranian-Americans. Tehran has also detained dual-nationals from France, Canada and the U.K. in recent months.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/400-million-sent-to-iran-as-us-prisoners-released-raising-questions-2016-08-02

The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.
Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.
The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi…
“With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well,” President Barack Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17 — without disclosing the $400 million cash payment…
Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas and a fierce foe of the Iran nuclear deal, accused President Barack Obama of paying “a $1.7 billion ransom to the ayatollahs for U.S. hostages.”
“This break with longstanding U.S. policy [not to] put a price on the head of Americans, and has led Iran to continue its illegal seizures” of Americans, he said.
Since the cash shipment, the intelligence arm of the Revolutionary Guard has arrested two more Iranian-Americans. Tehran has also detained dual-nationals from France, Canada and the U.K. in recent months.                

update:

Obama Administration Refuses To Give Details About Cash Payment To Iran

Obama administration spokesman Josh Earnest snaps at CBS reporter Margaret Brennan, asking: "Why is that relevant?" when questioned about the $400 million cash payment (in Euros and Swiss Francs) to Iran. Earnest faced more than 20 minutes of questions about the suspicious nature of this payment Wednesday after details were reported by the Wall Street Journal.

MARGARET BRENNAN, CBS NEWS: It would be easy for you to kill the argument [that there is anything suspicious about the payment] by saying this is exactly how it happened and why -- not just: Trust us there is nothing shady about a plane arriving in the middle of the night loaded with cash. Which is, you're saying it is innuendo. Right? You're saying nothing was done that was not above board. So why not?

JOSH EARNEST, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: I guess the point that I'm trying to make is, we could not possibly have been more transparent about this arrangement than to have the president of the U.S. announce it to all of you on live national television on the day it took place.

BRENNAN: The date the agreement was reached and the intent to pay to $1.7 billion, yes. But the details, you're saying this is a new detail on an old story. I guess, clarifying the detail is what would help--

EARNEST: But why is that relevant? Why is that relevant? Particularly when we all know there is no banking relationship between the U.S. and Iran, so again

BRENNAN: That is why there was a cash transfer--

EARNEST: I understand the political attacks that are being made by people who are trying to justify their opposition to the deal--

BRENNAN: At a minimum the $1.3 billion is taxpayer money? Don't people have a right to have an answer to that question?

EARNEST: That's why we announced it back in January.

BRENNAN: But the details. The transfer was from the trust fund, to this bank, to this bank. Or it had to be in Euros and Francs because we don't have a banking relationship because it is complicated. That would be a really simple thing that people would be able to follow.

EARNEST: None of what you have walked through changes the basic facts here. We acknowledged back on January 17 that there would be all kinds of innuendo hurled by people who oppose engagement with Iran... I recognize the details that you are trying to illicit might make for a colorful news story, but they don't change the facts!

?????
Funding the enemy, hundreds of millions, in cash, to the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism with barbaric bloodly massacres on innocent civilians, the nexus of evil in all the world.

How more inept, weak, reckless and unprincipled can one possibly be?

Appeasement and capitulation of the first order from our pacifist President,
Our No Lives Matter President.

A secretly organized airlift of $400 million in cash on wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies procured by our White House from the central banks of The Netherlands and Switzerland flown clandestine to Iran on an unmarked American cargo plane.

Is this 2016 Washington, or Al Capone Chicago of a century ago, or Havana 2016?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Just another example of how askew, how wretched, depraved and corrupt, the depths our American society has been dragged down to these past eight years by this most inept, unprepared President, so disparate from the 43 before him, with so little scrutiny by a servile or absent press/media.

“This is the most transparent administration in history, I can document that this is the case. Every visitor that comes into the White House is now part of the public record. Every law we pass and every rule we implement we put online for everyone to see.”

––The President just two summers ago.

What frauds, the lot of them.

“ If history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom. ”

“ We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak. It is then that tyrants are tempted. ”

––Ronald Reagan.