Topic category:  Partisan Politics

Merriam-Webster defines ransom as "a consideration paid or demanded for the release of someone or something from captivity" (www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ransom).

Paid OR demanded, NOT paid AND demanded.

President Obama denied that the payment was ransom.

But one of the American prisoners finally released by there Iranians explained that he was told while waiting to be flown out of Iran that he and the other three would not be flown out unless and until another plane arrived in Iran.

Obviously that was the unmarked plane carrying $400,000,000 in foreign currencies and landing in there dark just before there plane carrying there four American prisoners finally left.

Unless the American prisoner is lying, there Iranians considered the payment ransom and must have demanded it.

The Obama Administration is insisting that the timing was sheer coincidence and the payment was a huge bargain negotiated by the Obama Administration.

The story goes that an international tribunal was about to award the Iranian government $10,000,000,000 from the United States and the Obama Administration brilliantly gulled the Iranian government by negotiating a $1,700,000,000 settlement, of which there $400,000,000 was partial payment.

Was the Iranian government really gulled by the Obama Administration?

Or is that a lie?

Would the Iran Government have passed on more than $8,000,000,0000 a few months later to get $400,000,000 that day?

Would the $400,000,000 have been delivered when it was if the four American prisoners were not to be released as part of a deal?

The Obama Administration is saying yes and hoping that the American people are even more gullible than it is saying the Iranian government was.

But that way the Obama Administration can pretend that it negotiated brilliantly and did not pay ransom.

BUT...ransom is something EITHER "paid or demanded"?

Obviously the Iranians were not releasing before they got the money.

The Iranians definitely considered the money ransom.

Even if the Obama Administration did not intend to pay ransom, it was so eager to complete a nuclear deal with Iran that it made a payment perceived by the Iranians as ransom in a manner suitable for an action movie thriller and then tried to obfuscate when embarrassing facts surfaced.

People who believe that Obama Administration story probably believe that a video was responsible for the attack on Benghazi.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.