Search Results for: ransom
August 29, 2016 — Scott Johnson
Following up on Andy McCarthy’s NRO column on the $1.31 billion in ransom payments to Iran (apart from the $400 million in cash) and on my related post, a reader with background in federal law enforcement writes: I saw your post regarding the suspicious transactions totaling $1.31 billion to Iran and thought I could explain part of it but with more questions. The reason for the 13 structured payments is
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August 28, 2016 — Scott Johnson
At the New York Sun last week, Claudia Rosett tentatively reported the mechanics of the Obama administration’s payment of the $1.3 billion tranche of the ransom to Iran. She discovered what Andy McCarthy calls “a bizarre string” of 13 identical money transfers of $99,999,999.99 each — all of them one cent less than $100 million — paid out of an obscure Treasury Department stash known as the “Judgment Fund.” In
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August 19, 2016 — Scott Johnson
Did the United States really owe the Islamic Republic of Iran $1.7 billion because of a previousl Iranian regime’s payment of $400 million to us? Somehow I doubt it. The previous regme was a friend of the United States; the current one is a deathly enemy. Even if we owed it, there must be a loophole somewhere in the nature of a self-preservation exception. Did the $400 million cash payment
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August 5, 2016 — Scott Johnson
At his press conference yesterday, President Obama denied that we made a ransom payment to Iran, denied that the ransom payment was hidden and declined to respond to the question of the uses to which the ransom payment would be put (video below). Obama addressed the ransom payment for some seven minutes in his patented style, weaving in arrogance, condescension, disparagement and falsehood in roughly equal measure. Analyze this: “This
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August 4, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Team Obama keeps denying that it paid a ransom to Iran, so we’ll keep demonstrating that it did. Hey, it’s easy blogging. The latest evidence comes from one of the hostages, who discloses that he and the others were kept in the airport overnight until the Iranians confirmed that the plane with Obama’s payment had arrived. Omri Ceren has emailed the details. He writes: To resolve the [dispute over whether
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August 4, 2016 — Scott Johnson
The United States purchased $400 million of cash in European currencies from European central banks; the cash was purchased with American dollars. The United States then delivered the $400 million in cash to the Iranian regime in an unmarked cargo plane on the day that four Americans held by the Iranian regime were released. The transaction was kept secret from the American people. Among other things, the Obama administration sought
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August 3, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
The Obama administration’s denial that the $400 million cash payment to Iran — a payment that coincided to the day with the release of hostages — was a ransom would be hilarious, but for the fact that the money went to a regime whose motto is “death to America.” To my knowledge, the administration does not dispute the fact that without the payment, the hostages wouldn’t have been released. That’s
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August 3, 2016 — Scott Johnson
In the adjacent post Paul Mirengoff extracts the key points from the page-one Wall Street Journal story by Jay Solomon and Carol Lee reporting the Obama administration’s covert cash payment of $400 million to our enemies in Iran as they released four Americans they had detained. Omri Ceren has also emailed a useful summary of key points. Despite the repetition, I thought readers might find it of interest. Omri writes:
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August 2, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Obama administration secretly airlifted $400 million in cash to Iran in January at the same time Tehran was releasing four jailed Americans. The Journal, citing U.S. and European officials and congressional sources, says that Team Obama procured the money from central banks in Switzerland and the Netherlands. Reportedly, it was stacked on wooden pallets and flown to Tehran in an unmarked cargo
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March 24, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
When Iran freed five American hostages in January, President Obama was hailed by many in the mainstream media for his skillful diplomacy. However, more sober analysts, most notably Arthur Herman, wondered whether the Obama administration had, in effect, paid a ransom for the release of the Americans. The sense that this was a gussied up case of ransom payment, rather than clever diplomacy, arose not from the $100 billion or
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March 9, 2005 — Scott Johnson
The new column by Michelle Malkin focuses on a neglected element of the Giuliana Sgrena story: “The ransom of a red reporter.” Michelle also adds some flourishes in her post on the column here. Is Michelle a fan of O. Henry? We’ll get back to you on that one.
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January 31, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Andrew McCarthy has posted “Biden’s Iran Crisis Overlaps with His Border Crisis” in the accessible Corner cubby of NRO. This is his opening (links omitted): For many years, Iran has had an operational alliance with the Marxist totalitarian regime in Venezuela. This gives Iran a toehold in the West and a well-trod route to infiltrate operatives across the southern border. Biden has appeared blithely indifferent to this — which is
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November 7, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Liel Leibovitz comments on Barack Obama’s “we’re all complicit” shtick regarding the Hamas massacre of Israeli Jews (see Steve Hayward’s post here): Study the 44th president’s record, to say nothing of his extensive writing and speeches, and a clear ideology emerges, the sort of gauzy anti-Imperialist fantasy so trendy in graduate seminar rooms that eschews American power and dreams that the wretched of the earth will rise up to the
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October 9, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The Biden administration promotes the line that the $6 billion ransom it has posted for the benefit of Iran has nothing to do with Iran’s support for terrorism and this line is faithfully parroted in the mainstream media, including Jennifer Griffin on Fox News. Gabriel Noronha has comprehensively refuted this assertion in an informative thread on Twitter/X. Readers can access Noronha’s thread via the Xeet below. 🧵I'm sorry Jen but
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October 8, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Secretary of State Antony Blinken professes not to have seen any evidence that Iran planned and instigated Hamas’s war on Israel. Evidence is not hard to find. It is available on open sources and elsewhere. The trouble is obvious. Blinken is being briefed by President Biden. The two have no clue. The Wall Street Journal now reports ”Iran Helped Plot Attack on Israel Over Several Weeks.” Subhead: “The Islamic Revolutionary
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October 8, 2023 — Scott Johnson
As William Buckley used to say, herewith a few comments on Hamas’s 10/7 attack on Israel (with apologies for those that have already achieved the status of cliché): • Hamas’s 10/7 attack is something like Israel’s 9/11, only worse. Israel’s death toll has hit more than 400 (and rising). Adjusting for population and measuring by the deaths inflicted so far, Israel has suffered (is suffering) an attack that is something
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September 27, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Nature magazine reported yesterday on an effort in Europe to safeguard “academic freedom” from “crackdowns” on said freedom “in eastern and Central Europe.” (“Threats to research freedom have been seen in some countries in the European Union, such as Hungary, Poland and Sweden, over the past decade.”) So the Eurocrats want to have some kind of centralized diktat from Brussels to prevent elected governments from governing their public universities. I’m
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