State Department spokesman John Kirby

The entire right wing universe is crowing delightedly about today’s State Department news briefing, in which spokesman John Kirby said the US had “leveraged” the re-payment of the $400 million owed to Iran for decades to make sure US prisoners were released: State Dept. confirms $400 million Iran payment conditioned on hostage release.

Predictably, the right wing media are calling this a “confirmation” the Obama administration paid “ransom” to free those US prisoners, and Donald Trump even boasted in his speech tonight that the State Department “confirmed” this was a ransom payment.

But is that actually true?

If you know how these right wing stories go, you can probably already guess where I’m headed with this one: no, it’s another blatant distortion of the facts.

First, here’s what State Department spokesman John Kirby actually said today:

At a Thursday news briefing, State Department spokesman John Kirby addressed questions about a Wall Street Journal report by explaining that the U.S. held onto the $400 million cash payment until American prisoners were on a plane and safely away from Iran to “retain maximum leverage.” Kirby said the arrangement did not in any way constitute a ransom payment, as President Barack Obama’s Republican critics have alleged.

See that line about “did not in any way constitute a ransom payment?” Good luck finding this important information in any of the right wing media’s stories; they’re just leaving it out because it’s inconvenient to the narrative.

But logically, since when does the word “ransom” mean withholding money owed to someone until they release hostages? This is sheer nonsense. In fact, what happened here is the exact opposite of “ransom.” The US held back on releasing the money owed to Iran until we were sure they were releasing our people.

That’s not ransom. That’s a smart, tough successful negotiation that resulted in bringing home US service people unharmed.