Decisive clues in the Iran Deal have been lying out in the open for anyone to inspect for the past 7½ months:
Based entirely on the crucial timeline, President Obama appears to have been telling yet another fable last week in defending the intensively secretive “transfer” of $400 million to the No. 1 terror state of Iran last winter.
While he loudly and repeatedly insisted that the “transfer” was “an old story” revived by his Republican rivals whom he calls enemies, Mr. Obama was scrupulously selective about what he did and did not disclose at the time of “transfer.” That is critical.
- He did not tell us last Thursday or last winter that the $400 million was in unmarked bills!
- Or that the payoff reposed, disguised, on wooden pallets.
- Or that he dispatched the payoff or ransom to Tehran in an unmarked, unannounced, identity-cloaked cargo plane.
Probably just oversight.
One of the four Yankee hostages held by Tehran said that he and his fellow prisoners were detained on a plane at a Tehran airport for a day – until the after the American enemy cargo flight quietly had landed.
Was it still another remarkable Obama administration-orchestrated coincidence one day last winter when the State Dept. blandly announced (http://m.state.gov/md251338.htm) in 254 harmless-sounding words that opened this way:
“The United States and Iran today have settled a long outstanding claim at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal in the Hague.”
It is crucial that the chosen timing of the story’s release was a Sunday, Jan. 17, a distraction-heavy date.
Is Anybody Looking? Shhh
Sundays typically are dry news days. This Sunday, the 17th, was dry doubly so. Based on the administration’s record for creating coincidences, this probably was another accidental confluence of events.
Monday the 18th was a holiday, Martin Luther King Day, a big deal in Washington and elsewhere, a quintessential anti-news day.
Historically for politicians, a Sunday followed by a holiday, is the ideal block of time to make an announcement that you want to skid fast past public notice while swearing you have kept your promise to disclose pertinent news.
In the opening scene of this coincidence, Washington declared settlement with the terrorist state on a Sunday. By the darnedest coincidence, Iran, on the very next day, released four kidnapped Americans it was holding.
Quid pro quo.
In the latest tribute to Mr. Obama’s talent for straight-facing when confronted with helpful coincidences, see a video of his carefully scripted press conference last Thursday:
Numerous times, he denied that the long-hidden, gangster-style transfer of the $400 million was a ransom. Sure our prisoners were not released until the day after the settlement, until the unmarked dollars arrived in Tehran. But, boys, coincidence, I swear.
None of the incurious reporters at the press conference saw a need for followup questions.
Since the January ransom payment, two more Americans have been jerked off Iranian streets and kicked into prison. No word on their whereabouts or conditions. Perhaps because families of the four freed hostages were threatened by our benevolent government if they sought to spring any of the prisoners.
The final kernel of news on this round:
The incurious, sycophantic Los Angeles Times yesterday chastised the Wall Street Journal for “belatedly” – oops, but exclusively – reporting the gangland-style transfer of the ransom money. The Journal was first, not belated.
