The President's Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State (ISIS) Brett McGurk was confronted Friday over documents from the Iran ransom scandal where the documents' date was changed by a day to avoid reflecting the fact that the U.S. and Iran came to agreement on releasing U.S. prisoners as well as lifting certain sanctions.
McGurk was a lead American diplomat in the negotiations that led to the Iran nuke deal.
"It is alleged or said that the date on the original was January 16 and that was scratched out and the 17 was written instead," reporter Matt Lee said. "Can you explain, is that true and secondly can you explain why?"
"We had a number of strands of diplomacy come together at the exact same time on the same day and we had a very difficult 24 hours with the Iranians to finalize the prisoner trade," McGurk said. "So, a number of things were going on."
"We wanted to get a lot of business done the same day," McGurk added. "There were a number of documents signed on that final day and so, that's really what happened that final day."
Suspicions have been high since it was revealed that the American prisoners held in Iran were released once a plane carrying approximately $400 million to Tehran from Switzerland was in the air. The money was paid by the United States to settle a dispute over a failed arms deal from the 1970s.