State Dept.: 'No apologies' for using Iran payment as 'leverage'

The top spokesman for the State Department offered no apologies Friday after it confirmed that the United States conditioned the release of $400 million cash to Iran on the departure of American prisoners held in Tehran, arguing that it would have been "foolish and imprudent" to pay the money without getting them out of the country.

During an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," spokesman John Kirby remarked that he could not "speak for everything" said previously by the White House about the deal, but added that President Barack Obama "was very open about this at the time back in January."


While acknowledging that the two "tracks" of securing the prisoners' release and finalizing the nuclear deal came together, Kirby remarked, "we took full advantage of that and we make no apologies for that."

"We took full advantage of that momentum in what turned out to be about a 24-hour period to try to get it all done together," Kirby said. "And look, we don't—there isn't a lot of trust with Iran. So it would have been foolish and imprudent in our view to go ahead and settle the cash payment of the principal when we didn't have our Americans back."

Kirby recalled that Iran was "playing games with us" at the time with respect to the release of the prisoners, particularly with respect to Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian.

"And so we were very worried that in the final hours here, they were going to somehow pull a fast one," Kirby said. "And so, I think we did use it as leverage and we make no apologies about that because now we got our American citizens back safely."

