Will Deborah Ross Ever Comment On The Iran Ransom Payment? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Raleigh, NC     Two weeks have passed since The Wall Street Journal reported on the Obama administration's secret $400 million cash payment to Iran and Deborah Ross still has not said a word about the Administration's egregious decision. Yesterday, the State Department confirmed the cash payment was in fact contingent on the prisoners being released by the Iranian government, a connection the White House vehemently denied for weeks.

    As a candidate for the United States Senate, Deborah Ross has a duty to provide North Carolinians with a clear picture of where she stands on not only the ransom payment itself, but also the deceitful response by the White House in the days following the initial report. Ross' problems are further compounded by her continued support for the Iran Nuclear Deal-something she avoids mentioning to voters-even as Iran continues to be the preeminent state-sponsor of terrorism.


    "The bottom line is Deborah Ross is incapable of separating herself from failed the Obama-Clinton foreign policy agenda she would be beholden to in Washington. North Carolinians want a senator who will lead on critical matters of national security and Ross' silence is another example of her overall inexperience on key issues. It's time for Ross to speak up as to whether she believes this was a ransom payment."

    Associated Press: The Obama administration said Thursday that a $400 million cash payment to Iran seven months ago was contingent on the release of a group of American prisoners.

    It is the first time the U.S. has so clearly linked the two events, which critics have painted as a hostage-ransom arrangement.

    State Department spokesman John Kirby repeated the administration's line that the negotiations to return the Iranian money - from a decades-old military-equipment deal with the U.S.-backed shah in the 1970s - were conducted separately from the talks to free four U.S. citizens in Iran. But he said the U.S. withheld the delivery of the cash as leverage until Iran permitted the Americans to leave the country.

    Both events occurred Jan. 17, fueling suspicions from Republican lawmakers and accusations from GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump of a quid pro quo that undermined America's longstanding opposition to ransom payments.

    Kirby spoke a day after The Wall Street Journal reported new details of the crisscrossing planes on that day. U.S. officials wouldn't let Iran bring the cash home from a Geneva airport until a Swiss Air Force plane carrying three of the freed Americans departed from Tehran, the paper reported. The fourth American left on a commercial flight.

    Earlier this month, after the revelation the U.S. delivered the money in pallets of cash, the administration flatly denied any connection between the payment and the prisoners.

    "Reports of link between prisoner release & payment to Iran are completely false," Kirby tweeted at the time.

• Contact: Jesse Hunt
•     jhunt@burrforsenate.com