Senior officials at the Department of Justice (DoJ) were overruled after they objected to the Obama administration’s plan to send $400 million in cash to Iran at the same time that American hostages were released, The Wall Street Journal reported (Google link) Wednesday.

“People knew what it was going to look like, and there was concern the Iranians probably did consider it a ransom payment,” a source familiar with the interagency discussions told the Journal. A concerted push by the State Department helped the plan go through over the DoJ’s concerns. Because the money transfer occurred simultaneously with the release of the hostages, it has been criticized as a ransom payment. Foreign policy experts have also stressed the unusual nature of the transaction: The money was delivered in foreign currency to circumvent U.S. law forbidding transactions with Iran involving the U.S. dollar.

DoJ prosecutors also raised concerns that the U.S. “would release too many Iranian convicts and drop too many pending criminal cases against people suspected of violating sanctions laws,”  the Journal reported.

The payment’s questionable nature has disturbed members of Congress in both the House and Senate. “I am especially bothered by the efforts made to conceal this transaction—including delivery on wooden pallets by unmarked plane, and the deliberate change in currency to avoid sanctions,” Rep. John Katko (R – NY) said in a statement. “The Iranian regime has continued to suppress basic human rights and support foreign terrorist organizations. Coupled with the dangerous, broken policy of the nuclear deal with Iran, this incident, which appears to be a ransom payment, emboldens our enemies and degrades our ability to negotiate from a position of strength, while putting more Americans at risk of being captured.”

Since the January hostage release, Iran has already abducted at least two more Americans and at least three other Western dual-nationals. Reuters described the situation as the “the highest number of Iranians with dual-nationality detained at one time in recent years to have been acknowledged.” On Tuesday the Journal reported that family and friends of two American hostages believe that Iran has taken them to extract additional money from the administration or to have more convicted Iranian nationals freed.

Ransom payments are against U.S. government policy, as President Barack Obama stated on Wednesday, and as both the White House and State Department emphasized in briefings Wednesday and Thursday. Administration officials continue to contend that the payments do not constitute ransom.

[Photo: Matt Churchill / Flickr ]