As the English would say: Feck Off!

The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.  Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.  Senior U.S. officials denied any link between the payment and the prisoner exchange.  The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.  The $400 million was paid in foreign currency because any transaction with Iran in U.S. dollars is illegal under U.S. law.  The Obama administration has refused to disclose how it paid any of the $1.7 billion, despite congressional queries, outside of saying that it wasn’t paid in dollars. Full article @ The WSJ

So, here is the key question and it has nothing to do with the release of the hostages:

31 U.S.C. 1301 was enacted in 1809, this statute is one of the cornerstones of congressional control over the Federal purse. Because money cannot be paid from the Treasury except under an appropriation, and because an appropriation must be derived from an act of Congress, it is for Congress to determine the purposes for which an appropriation may be used. Simply stated, 31 U.S.C. 1301(a) says “that public funds may be used only for the purpose or purposes for which they were appropriated”. It prohibits charging authorized items to the wrong appropriation, and unauthorized items to any appropriation. 

SO WHERE DID THE MONEY COME FROM?

Mr. Kerry and the State and Treasury departments sought the cooperation of the Swiss and Dutch governments. Ultimately, the Obama administration transferred the equivalent of $400 million to their central banks. It was then converted into other currencies, stacked onto the wooden pallets and sent to Iran on board a cargo plane. 


SO WHERE DID THE MONEY COME FROM?

Revolutionary Guard commanders boasted at the time that the Americans had succumbed to Iranian pressure. “Taking this much money back was in return for the release of the American spies,” said Gen. Mohammad Reza Naghdi, commander of the Guard’s Basij militia, on state media. 

SO WHERE DID THE MONEY COME FROM?
 
Kerry described today's payment of the 35-year-old miltary purchase fund as a "fair settlement", Iran will receive the balance of USD 400 million in the Trust Fund, as well as a roughly USD 1.3 billion compromise on the interest," he said.

SO WHERE DID THE MONEY COME FROM?

I'd say $400 million would be a fair settlement for our embassy in Tehran, for the captivity of 52 Americans for 444 days. 

If it were me you'd get your 400 million one Tomahawk at a time, that would be 252 of them, well, 251.5  keep the change. Honestly I'd like to send you the entire $1.7 billion your asking for.

I hope you like today's musical selection, I dug it out of the archives since the last time we had an American president get sodomized by the Iranians this badly Jimmy Carter was in office.