By Patrick Goodenough

(CNSNews.com) August 10, 2016 – Facing ongoing question about claims of a link between Iran’s release of imprisoned Americans and the administration’s payment of $400 million to the regime, the State Department on Tuesday would still not say whether a plane carrying the cash landed in Tehran before one carrying the prisoners took off.
“I just want to try and get this cleared up,” Associated Press reporter Matt Lee said during a daily briefing. “Am I ever going to get an answer to the question about the planes?”
“I’ve given you the answer I can give,” spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau replied.
“So it’s basically a waste of time to keep asking about it? Is that what you’re saying?” Lee asked.
“Pretty much,” Trudeau said. “As we’ve said, we’re not going to get into a tick-tock. We’ve explained what the delay was for the plane with the Americans leaving, and I’ll leave it at that.”
At Monday’s briefing, Lee had asked, “Are you now able to say whether or not the plane with the money landed before the plane with the prisoners took off from Tehran?”
Trudeau replied, “So I’m not going to get into the tick-tock of specifics, but claims that our freed Americans were not allowed to depart Iran until a plane full of cash landed anywhere are false.”
She said a delay with the release last January of Pastor Saeed Abedini, Washington Post reporter and former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati had “nothing to do with” the $400 million payment. The administration says the money, along with an additional $1.3 billion in interest, is the settlement of an Iranian claim dating back to the 1979 revolution.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a leading critic of the administration’s Iran policy, accused the administration of “stonewalling.”
“The Obama administration’s stonewalling when it comes to Iran knows no bounds. In this case, silence is damning,” he said.
“When the administration repeatedly refuses to answer basic questions about the plane carrying the $400 million cash payment, it serves to confirm what is obvious to any reasonable observer: the administration paid a ransom for hostages,” Cotton said.
“The ayatollahs clearly know when that unmarked plane landed in Iran – why can’t the American people know as well?”