Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me respond just to some of the things that we have heard from some of our colleagues. This was not a ransom payment. This was payment for a 30-year-old claim over a weapons shipment that was never delivered, and the United States actually got a pretty good deal in the settlement. We might have had to pay more interest if we hadn't settled and the claim had gone to judgment at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal. When the prisoners' plane was sitting on the tarmac, the administration, as I mentioned before, held up the settlement money. They couldn't find the mother and wife of one of the prisoners, Jason Rezaian from The Washington Post. Administration officials feared that, as Mr. Rezaian was being released, the Iranians were detaining his family, and this was unacceptable. The administration leveraged the settlement money, holding it up until Mr. Rezaian's family could be found and the prisoners could leave the country. Leveraging the money, money that belonged to Iran in the first place and was going to be paid to Iran under the Algiers Accords, was smart. Can you imagine if the administration had paid the settlement anyway, even if the prisoner release was stalled? That didn't happen. Some people are saying that the administration made payments to Iran via wire transfer before and after the ransom, so why did the ransom have to be cash?…”