President Barack Obama. Photo: Pete Souza/White House.

As the debate rages over whether the payment of $400 million to Iran was a ransom to secure the release of four Americans being held prisoner by Iranian authorities, our analysis of the behavior exhibited by President Barack Obama in explaining the payment suggests that it was almost certainly a precondition for the prisoners’ release.

In an Aug. 4 press conference held at the Pentagon, President Obama made a concerted effort to disassociate the payment from the release of the prisoners. He argued that the payment, which had been announced in January, constituted an agreement to release Iranian assets that had been frozen by the US, following a legal review that concluded that not returning the assets could cost the US billions of dollars in litigation fees. The timing of the payment, President Obama insisted, was simply a consequence of having diplomatic negotiations with Iran for the first time in several decades. “So the issue is not so much that it was a coincidence, as it is that we were able to have a direct discussion,” the President said. “John Kerry could meet with the Foreign Minister, which meant that our ability to clear accounts on a number of different issues at the same time, converged.”

Read full story at Law Newz.