You may have heard yesterday that the Obama administration paid a "secret ransom" to Iran earlier this year totaling $400 million.
Gasp!
Except that's not what happened at all. It wasn't secret and it wasn't a ransom. The payment was part of a legal settlement negotiated at the international criminal court at The Hague. Iran sued the United States to recoup $400 million from an arms deal that went bust in 1979!
Depending on your point of view, you could say the money didn't even belong to us to begin with. Iran paid the United States $400 million for fighter jets that we never actually delivered to them after the Shah was deposed.
None of that matters to Donald Trump, however, because Donald Trump is an idiot and a liar.
During a campaign rally in Florida yesterday, Trump claimed that he watched a video of the money being delivered to Iran. No such video exists so some people speculated that Trump was leaking classified information, but as it turns out Trump never watched a video of money being delivered. He watched a video of Americans being exiting a plane in Switzerland after being released by Iran.
As Fox News reported on the controversial transfer of $400 million in cash to Iran in January, it repeatedly played dark, grainy footage of shadowy figures walking off a small private plane with bags with hand. [...]
"Remember this: Iran — I don't think you heard this anywhere but here — Iran provided all of that footage, the tape of taking that money off the airplane," Trump said at the rally. "Right?"
Right?
No.
The Washington Post asked Trump's staff to explain what Trump was talking about and emailed a link to a Fox News clip that showed the January footage from Geneva, asking if that was the video the nominee saw.
"Yes," spokeswoman Hope Hicks responded in an email. "Merely the b-roll footage included in every broadcast."
The money delivered to Iran wasn't even delivered in American dollars. It was delivered in various European currencies because it was transferred from Switzerland.
The supposed "secret ransom" story is already fizzling out, probably because it's a total fabrication that was already reported on by major news outlets 8 months ago. Some of the outlets that hyped the story yesterday reported it themselves 8 months ago. I guess they forgot.
This is an excellent example of how Fox News misleads people by displaying footage of a supposed riot that actually happened years ago and wasn't a riot at all or, in this case, displayed footage of some men carrying bags and passed it off as footage of a secret money drop.
What should concern everyone is that Trump, the GOP's presidential nominee, is dumb enough to buy it and openly repeat it as if it were fact.
My gut says Trump believes every UFO video he's ever seen is an authentic depiction of an alien spacecraft.