90 Miles From Tyranny

Monday, May 6, 2019

U.S. deploys carrier strike group and bomber task force to send 'unmistakable message' to Iran

National Security Advisor John Bolton delivered a forceful message of 'unrelenting force' on Sunday evening.

The USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, with a bomber task force, have been deployed to the Middle East to send a message to Iran, National Security Advisor John Bolton said in a statement Sunday night. The news comes after weekend of missile fire into Israel from militants in the Gaza strip and tensions between Iran and the U.S. have continued to escalate.

Here is Bolton's statement:

In response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings, the United States is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Grouop0 and a bomber task force to the U.S. Central Command region to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on the United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force. The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary guard Corps, or regular Iranian forces.

Just a month ago, the U.S. designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the elite Iranian force, a terrorist organization. The administration is imposing more sanctions on Iran any day. And just weeks ago the administration announced it would not be waiving sanctions for countries that import oil from Iran.

Violence in Gaza has dominated Middle East news in the United States this weekend, as missiles have been fired and civilians targeted by terror. Hamas fired over 200 rockets into Israel on Sunday. Among the other terror groups operating in Gaza and attacking Israel is the Islamic Jihad, an Iranian...

House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, in a Fox News interview Sunday, blasted “cherry-picked” findings in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report about Joseph Mifsud -- the mysterious professor from Malta who helped ignite the Russia probe in 2016.

The California Republican previously said he wanted to know exactly who was employing Mifsud when he spoke with George Papadopoulos, a former adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump.

“If the FBI does in fact have transcripts of Papadopoulos talking to anyone … I think Congress, and the American people, have a right to know this because in fact we paid for it, and we had to deal with this for two and a half years. We had to suffer through this,” he told Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Mifsud largely has vanished from public eye after his name began surfacing in news stories.

Last week, Nunes sent a letter addressed to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, CIA Director Gina Haspel, National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone and FBI Director Chris Wray. It asks them to hand over all information they had on Mifsud by May 10.

Nunes told Bartiromo he was concerned about how the Mueller report seemed to “cherry-pick” information regarding Mifsud.

“They pick a news story, and then they cherry-pick from it,” he said. “So, they use it partly to describe where Mifsud worked. But then they fail to say in that same story that they have given support to by using it in the Mueller dossier.”

Mifsud is a crucial figure in the report: Mueller’s report stated that Mifsud was the one who told Papadopoulos in April 2016 that the Russians had “dirt” in the form of emails that could damage Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Nunes told Bartiromo: “They cherry pick it and they don't use that Mifsud was described as a Western intelligence asset.”

He added that anyone simply could use the Internet to get a fuller picture of Mifsud: “You'll find pictures of him with many...