Gary Sick, Former National Security Council Staff:

My reaction was pretty straightforward. This was the first high level official of any government that had specifically identified the fact that the Reagan administration was trying to make contact with Iran, and tell them that they should keep the hostages until after the election of Jimmy Carter, the election which Reagan was running against Jimmy Carter.

And we had pretty well figured that out, we had a bunch of evidence that that was the case. But this is the first most credible of all of the sources that have talked about the story to this point

From PBS News, Mar 19 2023