Associated Press, Others, Promote Blatant Lie To Protect Obama, Nail Trump

Add The Associated Press to the liars in the mainstream media.

On Christmas the AP published a fact check on President Donald Trump’s claim that former President Obama paid ransom for the release of hostage in Iran.

Omri Ceren@omriceren

Aug 18, 2016: AP reporter gets Obama spokesman to admit on camera that $1.7 billion they gave Iran was quid pro quo for hostages.

Dec 25, 2018: AP publishes factcheck saying Trump is "recycling familiar fictions" by tweeting money was a quid pro quo for hostages.

5:52 PM - Dec 26, 2018

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The AP said:

—The $1.8 (actually $1.7 billion) was a debt owed to Iran, which bought military equipment from the U.S. that it never received because relations ruptured when the shah was overthrown in 1979.

—The debt was in international arbitration for years. As part of that, Iran paid settlements of more than $2.5 billion to U.S. citizens and businesses.

—$400 million, representing the principal and held in a U.S. government trust fund, was paid in cash and flown to Tehran on a cargo plane, which gave rise to Trump’s dramatic accounts of money stuffed in barrels or boxes and delivered in the dead of night.

The remaining $1.3 billion, representing interest accrued over nearly 40 years, was paid separately. In order not to violate U.S. regulations barring direct U.S. dollar transfers to Iranian banks, the money was remitted to Iran in late January and early February 2016 in foreign hard currency from the central banks of the Netherlands and of Switzerland, according to the Congressional Research Service .

Politifact also nailed the president on it.

While some in the national security community might consider the transaction unsavory, ineffectual, or legally questionable, calling it “ransom” isn’t quite accurate.

The word “ransom” implies that Iran refused to release the prisoners unless the United States turned over $400 million of its own money to Iran, and American officials capitulated.

In reality, the United States owed Iran $400 million as part of a longstanding dispute, and negotiators used that pending settlement as leverage to release the detained Americans. Experts said this kind of exchange is standard issue in U.S.-Iran relations over the past few decades.

The important but subtle nuance is this: While settling the $400 million helped ensure that the prisoners got home, it wasn’t an illicit payment. Iran, according to the claim adjudicators, had a legitimate right to the money.

The Politifact story was literally published the day after the Obama spokesman admitted it was ransom in Aug. 2016 and yet it was declared “Mostly False.”

Interesting because it was an AP reporter who got an Obama administration spokesman to admit that the funds were ransom in 2016, Mediaite reported.

STATE DEPARTMENT DEPUTY SPOKESMAN MARK TONER: But the idea that this was all orchestrated as part of some kind of quid pro quo is just not accurate. And the reason is is that the settlements team, they were toiling in that vineyard separate and apart from the other negotiations that were ongoing for, as I said, years if not decades before on some of these settlement issues. But we were – and we saw an opportunity to close out this settlement case as part of this – as I said, as part of the implementation day agreement, or reaching implementation day, rather.

And at the same time, we were working the release of these detainees. I recognize, I can see, the optics of this and that people would draw assumptions. People do. We can’t keep them from doing so, but it’s just not true that there’s any linkage.

We now know this to not be true. But even after being forced to admit that they would not deliver the money until the hostages were released, the administration bizarrely continues to maintain that there was no quid pro quo and that any link between the two is a mirage. At times, the State Department’s spin has been embarrassing to watch.

QUESTION: Beyond saying there’s no ransom, you’ve said several times – a lot of people from different podiums in this government have said there was no quid pro quo. What you just described is by definition a quid pro quo, is it not?

STATE DEPT SPOKESMAN JOHN KIRBY: No.

QUESTION: How is it not? You said they would not get the money until they were released – quid, quo.

MR KIRBY: Thank you for the Latin expert. The Latin lesson, the Latin lesson.

These are the “fact checkers” that decide what you are allowed to read when you browse sites like Facebook and YouTube and yet they report the facts they want and bend them to their whim.

It is Orwellian and it is frightening.