The White House Is Hiding the Missing Link of the Iran Ransom Payment

In an article Monday in the New York Sun, Claudia Rosett may have found one of the missing links in the Obama administration's Iran ransom story.

The White House says the $1.7 billion it agreed to give Iran in January wasn't in exchange for the release of American hostages but rather to settle a $400 million arms deal that fell apart after the shah was toppled in 1979. The additional $1.3 billion, said the administration, was interest. As the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month, the $400 million was paid in cash. And that's because President Obama explained, "we couldn't send them a check and we couldn't wire the money."

Rosett's detective work suggests that Obama was lying. It seems likely that the $1.3 billion was wired only a few days after the cash was delivered on January 17. Rosett's reporting suggests that the sum was paid through the Judgment Fund, which, according to a Treasury Department website, writes Rosett, is "a permanent, indefinite appropriation" used to pay monetary awards against U.S. government agencies in cases "where funds are not legally available to pay the award from the agency's own appropriations."

Rosett searched an online database maintained by the Judgment Fund. "A search for 'Iran" since the beginning of this year turns up nothing," she writes.

But a search for claims in which the defendant is the State Department turns up 13 payments for $99,999,999.99.