President Barack Obama accidentally admitted his administration evaded the law when it made a cash payment to Iran in January just as four Americans were released from Iranian prisons, columnist Charles Krauthammer said Thursday.
Obama explained in a Pentagon press conference earlier Thursday that the $400 million in euros, Swiss francs and other non-U.S. currencies couldn't be done through a wire transfer or with American dollars because the United States had no banking arrangement with Iran because it would have violated U.S. sanctions.
"That means because they were actually going around the law, going around sanctions, and they had to do it illicitly, clandestinely, at night the way it's done by gangsters," Krauthammer said on Fox News Channel's "Special Report."
"That's because they were doing ransom," Krauthammer said. "They didn't want anyone to know. And they had to go around the law and the Congress. The Congress didn't know. No, this is not old news. It's new news, and it's highly embarrassing."
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