A ransom to Iran by any other name...

...is just as criminal:

"Let’s not forget, when North was involved with the mere transfer of weapons and replacement parts for weapons to Iran in exchange for hostages in the 1980s, our nation was at a stand-still as Congress and the media behaved as though the presidency (and quite possibly the future of our Democratic Republic) was hanging in the balance.

Today, the circumventing of federal law by laundering US currency through a Swiss bank and converting it to 500 Euro bills (the preferred denomination of drug cartels and terrorists) and sending it on an unmarked plane in the dead of night while a plane with our American hostages waits for it to land barely warrants one question at a presidential press conference."