A Qatari Emiri Air Force C-17 Globemaster III, carrying humanitarian aid donations bound for Beirut, Lebanon, takes off from Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, Aug. 13, 2020. Over the past week, U.S. military families and members of the local community worked together to collect donations of food, clothing, diapers and toiletries to support the people of Lebanon.
Iran has shot multiple missiles targeting U.S. military bases in Qatar.
It appears the missiles were intercepted in the air, according to the Qatari Ministry of Defense.
“The Ministry of Defense announced that Qatari air defenses successfully intercepted a missile attack targeting Al-Udeid Air base,” according to a statement from the Ministry of Defense.
The attacks are in retaliation for Saturday evening’s U.S. strikes. At the time of publication, there haven’t been any reports of ground strikes.
Iranian state media confirms the attack in response to the U.S. striking three of Iran’s most prominent nuclear facilities over the weekend.
As reported by The Center Square, Israel maintains air superiority over Iran, likely providing an advantage to allies.
Americans in Qatar were told to shelter in place while the country had shut down airspace prior to the missile strikes.
The Gulf nation sits directly across from Iran on the Persian Gulf, well within close striking distance.
The missile strikes came as President Donald Trump was scheduled to meet with his national security team at the White House.
“Any retaliation by Iran against the United States of America will be met with force far greater than what was witnessed tonight,” the president posted to Truth Social.
Before the Israeli strikes against Iran on June 12, the U.S. Department of Defense urged military dependents to evacuate from U.S. bases in the Middle East.
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‘Perjury is a crime,’ Sen. Rand Paul declared on X. ‘And Fauci must be held accountable.’
Sen. Rand Paul announced Monday that he is again pressuring the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to launch a criminal probe of Dr. Anthony Fauci after The New York Times revealed his 11th-hour pardon by the Biden administration is likely invalid.
“Today, I will reissue my criminal referral of Anthony Fauci to Trump DOJ!” declared Paul, later adding, “Perjury is a crime. And Fauci must be held accountable.”
By late in the afternoon on Monday, the Kentucky senator had composed a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi citing the times he believed Fauci had lied under oath during congressional hearings and urging the DOJ to finally investigate Fauci.
“In July 2023, I referred Dr. Anthony Fauci to the Department of Justice for lying under oath to Congress. His own emails directly contradicted his sworn testimony,” Paul wrote X.
“NYT reports Fauci was quietly pardoned by an autopen, operated by Biden’s staff. If the President didn’t authorize this pardon personally, then the Department has a duty to investigate and prosecute as it would any ordinary citizen,” Paul said.
“Fauci has been sainted by the extremist Left, but it doesn’t erase his lying before Congress,” Paul said. “I am officially re-referring Dr. Fauci to the DOJ.”
In July 2023, I referred Dr. Anthony Fauci to the Department of Justice for lying under oath to Congress. His own emails directly contradicted his sworn testimony.@NYT reports Fauci was quietly pardoned by an autopen, operated by Biden’s staff. If the President didn’t authorize… pic.twitter.com/j0wrt6QdoJ
Sen. Paul concluded his letter to Bondi by explaining that his autopen pardon is now seen to be illegitimate:
On January 19, 2025, Dr. Fauci was issued a full and unconditional pardon for any offenses that he may have committed or taken part in since 2014. Dr. Fauci was included among a group of individuals granted unprecedented preemptive pardons on President Joe Biden’s final day in office. However, new information has revealed that these pardons were executed via autopen, with no documented confirmation that the President personally reviewed or approved each individual grant of clemency.
According to reports, White House staff authorized the use of the autopen to issue the clemency documents. This raises serious constitutional and legal concerns about the legitimacy of Dr. Fauci’s Pardon.
President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday that the constant reliance on the autopen by the Biden administration is “one of the biggest scandals that we’ve had in 50 to 100 years.”
“I guarantee (Biden) knew nothing about what he was signing,” Trump asserted.
“I guarantee it,” he emphasized.
Fauci’s mendacious relationship with Congress
The senator from the Bluegrass State and Dr. Fauci have long had a combative relationship.
In 2021, Sen. Paul alleged that Fauci, who then served as director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) and as medical adviser to former President Joe Biden, “lied to Congress” when he claimed that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), of which the NIAID is a part, was not funding and had never funded “gain-of-function” research in Wuhan, China.
Then in 2023, Paul again filed a criminal referral to the DOJ against the White House COVID czar for lying to Congress about his role in subsidizing controversial gain-of-function (GOF) research that was suspected of contributing to the COVID outbreak.
“We have him dead to rights, the problem is this: we have Merrick Garland who I think is a pure rank partisan,” Paul said at the time. “I don’t think he’ll ever be prosecuted. We also have a Democrat Party that is happy to have paid him more than the president, more than any president makes and he actually got a million dollars from a private foundation while he was still a public servant. Everything about this is rotten to the core and if we don’t bring him to justice we’ll never get the control we need on this type of research to try and prevent it from happening again.”
Paul has said multiple times that Dr. Fauci should “go to prison” for lying to Congress.
Monday, the Supreme Court blocked an order by a federal judge that would have forced the Department of Education to reinstate nearly 1,400 employees fired by the Trump administration.
President Trump hailed the Supreme Court’s ruling allowing the continued dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education and the return of its authority and functions to individual states, “a Major Victory to Parents and Students across the Country.”
In a decision issued on Monday, the high court blocked an order by a federal judge in Massachusetts that would require the Department of Education to reinstate nearly 1,400 employees who had been terminated by the Trump administration in March.
“The United States Supreme Court has handed a Major Victory to Parents and Students across the Country, by declaring the Trump Administration may proceed on returning the functions of the Department of Education BACK TO THE STATES,” wrote the president on Truth Social.
“Now, with this GREAT Supreme Court Decision, our Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, may begin this very important process,” said Trump. “The Federal Government has been running our Education System into the ground, but we are going to turn it all around by giving the Power back to the PEOPLE.”
“America’s Students will be the best, brightest, and most Highly Educated anywhere in the World. Thank you to the United States Supreme Court!” added the president.
“Today, the Supreme Court again confirmed the obvious: the President of the United States, as the head of the Executive Branch, has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies,” noted Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon. “While today’s ruling is a significant win for students and families, it is a shame that the highest court in the land had to step in to allow President Trump to advance the reforms Americans elected him to deliver using the authorities granted to him by the U.S. Constitution.”
“The U.S. Department of Education will now deliver on its mandate to restore excellence in American education,” explained McMahon. “We will carry out the reduction in force to promote efficiency and accountability and to ensure resources are directed where they matter most – to students, parents, and teachers. As we return education to the states, this Administration will continue to perform all statutory duties while empowering families and teachers by reducing education bureaucracy.”
When leftist Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren took to X to decry the court’s decision and attempted to take the moral high ground by saying, “Every kid in America deserves access to a good public education,” Sec. McMahon used a deft bit of jujitsu to respond.
“I couldn’t agree more,” said McMahon, “and that’s why we need to return education to the states.”
Sen. Warren wasn’t the only one issuing hyperbolic prophesies of disaster following the court’s decision.
“Trump and his allies” are taking “a wrecking ball to public schools and the futures of the 50 million students in rural, suburban, and urban communities across America,” asserted Becky Pringle, president of the nation’s largest teachers’ union, the National Education Association.
In her written dissent, in which she was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor predicted nothing short of disaster.
The majority’s decision “will unleash untold harm, delaying or denying educational opportunities and leaving students to suffer from discrimination, sexual assault, and other civil rights violations without the federal resources Congress intended.”
“The Supreme Court has handed Trump one victory after another in his effort to remake the federal government, after lower courts have found the administration’s actions probably violate federal law,” lamented a report by the Associated Press. “Last week, the justices cleared the way for Trump’s plan to significantly reduce the size of the federal workforce. On the education front, the high court has previously allowed cuts in teacher-training grants to go forward.”
