[Fox] Sen. Tom Cotton suggested Sunday that he’ll accept President Obama’s explanation that the roughly $400 million in cash to Iran amid the country holding several Americans captive was part of a decades-old settlement, but said the move sends a "dangerous" message to terrorists and others around the world."He said this payment was not a ransom," Cotton, R-Ark., a top critic of Obama’s recent Iran nuclear deal, said on "Fox News Sunday."
"It doesn't really matter though what President Obama says. It matters what the Iranians think and it matters what dictators and terrorists and gangsters all around the world think. And they clearly think that this was a ransom payment ... That's why it's so dangerous."
The freshman senator also accused administration officials of stonewalling Congress and the American public about the specifics of the deal and the cash delivery roughly six months ago, continuing his criticism last week of the deal.
"We didn't know the cash payment, for instance," Cotton said. "We didn't know that it was paid for with bills that could be easily laundered or used for terrorism or support for Iran's allies throughout the region. And we didn't know that the Department of Justice opposed it. ... There are still a lot of questions left to be answered. And the Obama administration continues to stonewall on this."
The first-term senator also used a litany of strong words to describe the money delivery, in Euro notes, and how the administration behaved, including acting like a "third world gun runner" and a "drug cartel to the world's most dangerous terror state."