American Hostage Joshua Holt Released After Being Incarcerated in Venezuelan Since 2016

UTAH MAN FREED!!!

26 year old Joshua Holt has been freed after having been incarcerated in a Venezuelan jail since 2016. Holt and his wife, Thamy, have been held in a Venezuelan prison since 2016. President Donald Trump announced the release this morning, “Good news about the release of the American hostage from Venezuela,” Trump tweeted. “Should be landing in D.C. this evening and be in the White House, with his family, at about 7:00 P.M. The great people of Utah will be very happy!”

@realDonaldTrump

A Utah man who has been incarcerated in a Venezuelan jail since 2016 is set to be released, U.S. officials said Saturday.

Joshua Holt, 26, has been jailed in Venezuela after he traveled to the South American country in the summer of 2016 to marry Thamara Candelo, whom he met on a website for Mormon singles. The two planned to return to the U.S. after getting married, but where jailed in El Hilcolde on what human rights groups said were largely trumped-up charges.

“Good news about the release of the American hostage from Venezuela. Should be landing in D.C. this evening and be in the White House, with his family, at about 7:00 p.m. The great people of Utah will be very happy!” President Donald Trump said in an early morning tweet.

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah also provided a statement on the Holt’s release.

Four African-Americans Charged with Hate Crime in Brutal & Despicable Attack on a Mentally Disabled White Man

MAKE THAT HATE CRIMES X’S 2 … RACIALLY MOTIVATED AND ATTACK ON MENTALLY DISABLED PERSON …

Four blacks, Jordan Hill, 18, Tesfaye Cooper, 18, and sisters Brittany Covington, 18, and Tanishia Covington, 24, have all been charged with hate crimes, among others, in the kidnapping and viscous attack on a white, mentally disabled individual. According to reports, the victim had been reported missing and spent at least 24 hours and possibly up to 48 hours with the suspects. The four suspects kidnapped, tied up, beat and tortured disabled, special needs, mentally disabled man and streamed it on video on Facebook Live.

Charged in the attack were Jordan Hill, 18, of Carpentersville; Tesfaye Cooper, 18, of Chicago; and sisters Brittany Covington, 18, and Tanishia Covington, 24, who lived in an apartment in the 3300 block of West Lexington Street where the assault allegedly took place.

The four — who are all African-American — were each charged with aggravated kidnapping, hate crime, aggravated unlawful restraint and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, according to police. Hill also was charged with robbery, possession of a stolen motor vehicle and residential burglary, while both Covingtons were charged with residential burglary, police said.

Police said all four have given statements admitting to their roles in the alleged attack. They’re scheduled to appear for a bond hearing Friday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.

Late Thursday, David Boyd, who identified himself as the victim’s brother-in-law, said in a brief statement to reporters that the family was grateful for “all the prayers and efforts” that led to his safe return.

“He’s doing well, as well as he could be at this time,” Boyd said. He said “everyone has seen the video” but declined to comment on what he thought of it.

“We appreciate all the support from everyone,” Boyd said, adding they were focused on “trying to stick together as a family.”

Lame duck president Barack Obama appears to have finally acknowledged the hideous crime as a hate crime, well kinda. Earlier in the day on Thursday, at a White House press briefing, press secretary Josh Earnest declined to say whether the alleged crime amounted to a hate crime but called it “disturbing” and said the images demonstrate “a level of depravity that is an outrage to a lot of Americans.” Really, the WH could not just call this for what it was? Under pressure to react to the obvious and a double standard of labeling and reacting to past so-called hate crimes, President Obama later was forced to say, “we appear to have seen” a hate crime in the alleged attack on a Chicago man captured on Facebook. Obama went on to blame the internet for exposing long simmering racial tensions. Really Mr. President? Maybe you are to blame for them.

President Barack Obama called the news from his hometown “despicable” and said the Internet has exposed long simmering racial tensions.

“What we have seen as surfacing, I think, are a lot of problems that have been there a long time,” Obama told a Chicago-area television station in a prearranged interview in Washington. “Whether it’s tensions between police and communities, (or) hate crimes of the despicable sort that has just now recently surfaced on Facebook.”

The four will be in court today. I can only imagine what their defense attorney will concoct. Not guilty of course.

Four Blacks Arrested After White Mentally Disabled Special Needs Man Tied Up & Tortured on Facebook Live While Yelling … “F*ck Trump!” and “F*ck White People!”

HMM, BUT SOME HOW THE “POLITICALLY CORRECT” POLICE CANNOT CALL THIS A HATE CRIME …

Can you imagine how the media, the LEFT, Black Lives Matters and law enforcement would be reacting if the disabled victim was black and the suspects of this heinous crime were white? Four blacks are under arrest in Chicago after tying up, beating and torturing a disabled, special needs man as they streamed it on video on Facebook Live. What in God’s name is wrong with some people? What in the hell would possess individuals to act in such a vile and savage manner? The video was uploaded to Facebook live yesterday by a user named Brittany Herring, the African-American woman who appears in the clip. According to police, “the incident took place Tuesday in an apartment on the 3400 block of West Lexington on Chicago’s West Side.” During the video where the white mentally disabled man was being tortured, you can hear someone yell “F*ck Trump!” and “F*ck white people!” But of course the police are struggling to say whether this is a hate crime or not. Forget the fact that 4 people are attacking a disabled individual who cannot protect himself. As the Gateway Pundit asks, where is the DOJ, where’s All Sharpton?

These 4 need to have the book thrown at them and put in prison so it is known that this will never be acceptable or allowed, EVER!!! Enough of this was not a hate crime and kids just doing something stupid, this was a heinous act and needs to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. STOP MAKING EXCUSES.

Chicago investigators are questioning four African-Americans after a Facebook Live video shows a group of people torturing a white mentally disabled man while someone yelled “F*** Trump!” and “F*** white people!”

Chicago police were made aware of the video Tuesday afternoon. A young African American woman streamed the video live on Facebook showing at least four people holding the young white man hostage.

“The video is reprehensible,” said police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.

“It’s sickening. You know it makes you wonder what would make individuals treat somebody like that,” Police Supt. Eddie Johnson added.

Throughout the video, the victim is repeatedly kicked and hit, his scalp is cut, all while he is tied up with his mouth taped shut.

At one point, the victim is held at knife point and told to curse President-elect Donald Trump. The group also forces the victim to drink water from a toilet.

More reaction from Twitchy.

State Department Confirms Obama Lied and the $400 Million Iran Payment was a Ransom for American Hostage Release

WHAT A SHOCK, OBAMA LIED ABOUT THE $400 MILLION RANSOM TO IRAN JUST LIKE HE LIED ABOUT OBAMACARE …

As reported at The Politico, State Department spokesman John Kirby all but admitted that the $400 million paid to Iran was a conditional ransom for the release of American hostages. President Barack Obama had previously lectured us that this was not a ransom; however,  State Department spokesman 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.” A note to the lying and deceitful Obama administration, what Kirby just defined was a ransom.Obama claimed that he would have the most transparent administration, EVER! It has been nothing short of Nixonian. But what would you expect from a president who lied about Obamacare, lied that you could keep your insurance and your doctor, lied that Obamacare we will reduce your insurance premiums by $2,500, per family per year, lied  that he cannot pass amnesty through executive action… I am not a dictator, lied about the strength of ISIS and on and on and on.

Republicans are claiming vindication after the State Department confirmed on Thursday that the United States conditioned the release of a $400 million cash payment to Iran on the departure of American prisoners from Tehran.

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.

For those that are definition challenged:

“We deliberately leveraged that moment to finalize these outstanding issues nearly simultaneously,” he said. “With concerns that Iran may renege on the prisoner release, given unnecessary delays regarding persons in Iran who could not be located as well as, to be quite honest, mutual mistrust between Iran and the United States, we of course sought to retain maximum leverage until after American citizens were released. That was our top priority.”

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump seized on the announcement during a campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, saying it proved that Obama had “lied” about the payment and said it had “put every American traveling overseas, including our military personnel, at greater risk of being kidnapped.”

“He denied it was for the hostages, but it was,” Trump said. “He said we don’t pay ransom, but he did. He lied about the hostages — openly and blatantly — just like he lied about Obamacare.”

Does the United States of America really need four more years of a continuation of the LIES!!! Hillary Clinton is already not trustworthy and has repeatedly lied to the American people and she isn’t even president yet. Stop her now, don’t elect another LIAR to office. When are the American people going to say enough is enough?

Barack Obama’s $400 Million Ransom Payment to Iran to Free Hostages

WHAT, YOU THOUGHT IRAN RELEASED THE AMERICAN HOSTAGES BECAUSE THEY RESPECTED AND FEARED OBAMA?

The WSJ is reporting that the Obama administration sent $400 million to Iran as Americans were freed from the terror state. However, Barack Hussein Obama claims that there was no quid pro quo, and it was not a ransom as critics have charged. Oh, of course it was just a coincidence. REALLY? And if you believe that one I have a private email server to sell you from Hillary Clinton’s bathroom that did not contain top secret emails. Interestingly enough, the Iranian press reports have quoted senior Iranian defense officials describing the cash as a ransom payment. How sad has it become in America when one believes the Iranian media over the President of the United States?

The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.

Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.

The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Senior U.S. officials denied any link between the payment and the prisoner exchange. They say the way the various strands came together simultaneously was coincidental, not the result of any quid pro quo.

“As we’ve made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim…were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “Not only were the two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of The Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years.”

But U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to show they had gained something tangible.

Powerline points out some of the specifics of the Obama ransom for hostages deal with Iran.

(1) It was indeed a ransom payment – negotiators originally established a formula of people for people: American nationals held by Iran for Iranian nationals held by America. But then the Iranians started demanding billions of dollars as well. Iranian officials later bragged they coerced the ransom out of U.S. diplomates —

The U.S. and Iran entered into secret negotiations to secure the release of Americans imprisoned in Iran in November 2014… The discussions… initially focused solely on a formula whereby Iran would swap the Americans detained in Tehran for Iranian nationals held in U.S. jails… But around Christmas, the discussions dovetailed with… the old arms deal. The Iranians were demanding the return of $400 million… They also wanted billions of dollars as interest accrued since then… a report by an Iranian news site close to the Revolutionary Guard, the Tasnim agency, said the cash arrived in Tehran’s Mehrabad airport on the same day the Americans departed. Revolutionary Guard commanders boasted at the time that the Americans had succumbed to Iranian pressure. “Taking this much money back was in return for the release of the American spies,” said Gen. Mohammad Reza Naghdi, commander of the Guard’s Basij militia, on state media.

(2) The administration hid the details from Congress – Lawmakers have been pressing the administration for six months to provide more details about how and where the money went, among other things because Iran has been transferring money for military purposes. They’ve made little progress —

The Obama administration has refused to disclose how it paid any of the $1.7 billion, despite congressional queries, outside of saying that it wasn’t paid in dollars. Lawmakers have expressed concern that the cash would be used by Iran to fund regional allies, including the Assad regime in Syria and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization. The U.S. and United Nations believe Tehran is subsidizing the Assad regime’s war in Syria through cash and energy shipments. Iran has acknowledged providing both financial and military aid to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and deploying Iranian soldiers there.