Trump tries to tamp down talk of war with Iran
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he hopes the U.S. is not on a path to war with Iran amid fears that his two most hawkish advisers could be angling for such a conflict with the Islamic Republic.
Asked if the U.S. was going to war with Iran, the president replied, “I hope not” — a day after he repeated a desire for dialogue, tweeting, “I’m sure that Iran will want to talk soon.”
The tone contrasted with a series of moves by the U.S. and Iran that have sharply escalated tensions in the Middle East in recent days. For the past year, national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have been the public face of the administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.
The friction has rattled lawmakers who are demanding more information on the White House’s claims of rising Iranian aggression. Top leaders in Congress received a classified briefing on Iran Thursday, but many other lawmakers from both parties have criticized the White House for not keeping them informed.
Saudis blame Iran for drone attack amid calls for US strikes
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia accused Tehran of being behind a drone strike that shut down a key oil pipeline in the kingdom, and a newspaper close to the palace called for Washington to launch “surgical” strikes on Iran, raising the specter of escalating tensions as the U.S. boosts its military presence in the Persian Gulf.
Concerns about possible conflict have flared after the U.S. dispatched warships and bombers to the region to counter an alleged but unspecified threat from Iran. There also have been allegations that four oil tankers were sabotaged Sunday off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, and Iran-aligned rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack on the Saudi pipeline.
The fears have grown out of President Donald Trump’s decision last year to withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers and impose wide-reaching sanctions — the latest levied as recently as last week — that have crippled Iran’s economy.
Saudi Prince Khalid bin Salman, who is King Salman’s son and the country’s deputy defense minister, tweeted that the drone attack on two Saudi Aramco pumping stations running along the East-West pipeline were “ordered by the regime in Tehran, and carried out by the Houthis” — a reference to the Yemeni rebel group.
US: Flynn described efforts to interfere with cooperation
WASHINGTON — Former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn told the special counsel’s office that people connected to the Trump administration and Congress sought to influence his cooperation with the Russia investigation, and he provided a voicemail recording of one such communication, prosecutors said in a court filing made public Thursday.
Meanwhile, the judge in the case ordered that portions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that relate to Flynn be unredacted and made public by the end of the month.
From wire sources
Thursday’s order from U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan is the first time a judge is known to have directed the Justice Department to make public any portion of the report that the agency had kept secret. It could set up a conflict with Attorney General William Barr, whose team spent weeks blacking out from the report grand jury information, details of ongoing investigations and other sensitive information.
Prosecutors revealed details about Flynn’s communications in a court filing aimed at showing the extent of his cooperation with Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Flynn, a vital witness in the probe, is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts during the presidential transition period in 2016 with the-then Russian ambassador to the United States.
Prosecutors did not identify the people with whom Flynn was in touch nor did they describe the exact conversations.
Chelsea Manning sent back to jail for refusing to testify
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning was ordered back to jail Thursday for refusing to testify to a grand jury, even after telling a judge she’d rather “starve to death” than cooperate with prosecutors.
U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga ordered her to remain incarcerated at the Alexandria jail either until she agrees to testify or until the grand jury’s term expires in 18 months. He also imposed fines that will kick in at $500 a day after 30 days and $1,000 a day after 60 days.
Manning already spent two months in jail for refusing a previous subpoena to testify to a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. She was released last week when that grand jury’s term expired, but prosecutors quickly hit her with a new subpoena to testify to a new grand jury.
Manning has offered multiple reasons for refusing to testify, but fundamentally says she considers the whole grand jury process to be unacceptable.
Trenga was unimpressed with her rationale and noted that grand juries are embedded in the Constitution.