It’s not paying ransom if President Obama is the one flying hundreds of millions in cold, hard cash to Tehran to grease the release of American hostages.

That’s the White House line, anyway.

Press Secretary Josh Earnest spent 20 minutes Wednesday trying to throw cold water on bombshell Wall Street Journal reporting on the $400 million in euros and other hard currency flown aboard an unmarked cargo plane on the day of January’s hostage release — over fierce Justice Department objections.

Yes, Obama did announce that, as part of his dubious nuclear deal with Tehran, he’d agreed to settle an old Iranian claim for $400 million, plus $1.3 billion in interest.

But what he never told the American people — and what his administration deliberately withheld from Congress — was all the sordid details.

Like the cash airlift — a payoff landed the very day four innocent American captives were freed by Tehran (which also got back seven Iranian criminals).

Earnest called the timing a coincidence.

Never mind that the talks for a prisoner swap were stalled until Washington agreed to the payout. Or that Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders boasted openly they’d coerced the money “for the release of the American spies.”

Sure sounds like a ransom payment to us.

Paying ransoms effectively puts a price on the head of every American. That’s why Iran is busy re-stocking its supply of US hostages — with three more recently taken captive and another, former FBI agent Bob Levinson, still unaccounted for.

Team Obama defends it as just another part of its supposed shift in relations with Iran — all centered on the nuclear deal, the cornerstone of Obama’s foreign-policy legacy (and fully backed by Hillary Clinton).

Yet the deal looks ever worse as more facts roll out — like the secret side deal that leaves Iran far closer to a nuclear bomb than Obama has been claiming.

Looks, in fact, like one of the most shameful accords in US history.

For all the phony narratives the White House spun to sneak the deal past Congress, polls show the American people have never supported it. When will Democrats admit they made a horrible mistake?