State Department: $400M Payment To Iran Was Contingent On Release Of U.S. Prisoners

WASHINGTON (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The U.S. State Department said Thursday that the $400 million cash payment to Iran was contingent on the release of American prisoners.

As CBS2's Brian Conybeare reported, the State Department remarks directly contradicted President Barack Obama's claim about the release of Iranian hostages.

On Jan. 17, four U.S. citizens jailed by Tehran were released and flown out of the country. The same day, the United States paid $400 million to settle a decades-old dispute with Iran over a 1970s weapons deal.

Spokesman John Kirby said negotiations over the United States' returning the Iranian money from a decades-old account was conducted separately from the prisoner talks. But he says the U.S. withheld delivery of the cash as "leverage" until the U.S. citizens had left Iran.

"We of course wanted to seek maximum leverage in this case as these two things came together at the same time," Kirby said.

Kirby spoke after The Wall Street Journal reported that the departures of the crisscrossing planes were linked.

"Given the fact that Iran hadn't proved completely trustworthy in the past, it would have been imprudent and irresponsible to not, since we knew this payment was coming and coming soon, to not hold it up until we made sure we had our Americans out," Kirby said.

The State Department remarks marked the first time the Obama administration has admitted the two were linked.

When Iran released the hostages in January, including journalist Jason Rezaian and former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, the Obama administration denied that they had paid ransom to the country.

"With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well," President Barack Obama said in a news conference earlier this month.

The president asserted at that news conference that the U.S. does not pay ransoms.

"We do not pay ransoms. We didn't here and we won't in the future," Obama said, "precisely because if we did, then we would start encouraging Americans to be targeted much in the same way that countries that do pay ransom end up having a lot more of their citizens being taken by various groups."

In North Carolina on Thursday night, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Obama flat-out lied.

"It was flown to Iran -- $400 million dollars in cash. He denied it was for the hostages, but it was -- just came out. He said we don't pay ransom, but we did. He lied about the hostages - openly and blatantly," Trump said.

There was no comment form Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton late Thursday. But after criticism about her family foundation accepting donations from foreign governments and corporations while she was still secretary of state, CBS News has confirmed the Clinton Foundation will end that practice if she is elected in November.

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