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thomas massie
US-Iran Talks Delayed for 'Logistical Reasons' After Hegseth Social Media Threat
"With sufficient will, the negotiations can reach the finish line and avert the risks of a disastrous war and Iranian weaponization of its nuclear program," said the National Iranian American Council's policy director.
May 01, 2025
Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi announced on social media Thursday that a fourth round of U.S.-Iran nuclear talks planned for this coming weekend has been postponed—just hours after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly threatened Iran.
However, al-Busaidi, who has mediated the previous rounds of negotiations, did not address the U.S. threat. He claimed on social media that the delay was due to "logistical reasons" and "new dates will be announced when mutually agreed."
As The Associated Pressreported:
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei issued a statement describing the talks as being "postponed at the request of Oman's foreign minister." He said Iran remains committed to reaching "a fair and lasting agreement."
Meanwhile, a person familiar with the U.S. negotiators said that America "had never confirmed its participation" in a fourth round of talks in Rome. However, the person said the U.S. expected the talks to occur "in the near future." The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations.
During U.S. President Donald Trump's first term, he ditched the Iran nuclear deal negotiated under the Obama administration. After Trump returned to the Oval Office in January, Vice President JD Vance had to cast a tiebreaking vote to confirm Hegseth, whose tenure as Pentagon chief thus far has been marred by controversy and accusations of ineptitude.
Hegseth—a former Fox News host who faces mounting calls to resign after sharing U.S. plans to bomb Yemen in multiple chats on the commercial messaging application Signal—addressed Iran's support for the Houthis, a Yemeni group, in a late Wednesday social media post.
"Message to IRAN: We see your LETHAL support to the Houthis," he said. "We know exactly what you are doing. You know very well what the U.S. Military is capable of—and you were warned. You will pay the CONSEQUENCE at the time and place of our choosing."
Hegseth's initial post was from his Pentagon account. He also
shared it on his personal account with a screenshot of a mid-March Truth Social post in which Trump railed against Iran and the Houthis.
In response to Hegseth, journalist Ryan Grim asked, "This because our jet fell off our boat?"
A $60 million U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet recently went overboard from the USS Harry S. Truman after the aircraft carrier turned to evade Houthi fire, according to a U.S. official.
Republican Congressman Thomas Massie (Ky.)—who has a history of joining with Democrats to criticize military action without a declaration of war, particularly in Yemen—responded: "I support this administration, but the secretary of defense doesn't have the constitutional authority to declare war on a sovereign country. A planned military attack on Iran is an act of war and requires a vote of Congress according to the U.S. Constitution."
Ryan Costello, policy director of the National Iranian American Council, said in a statement that "Trump entered office with a deficit of effective U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East, not a deficit of threats or bombing. Where the administration has led with diplomacy and sustained that focus, they've delivered some positive results. Where the administration has let bombs lead the way, like the Biden administration before them, we've seen security worsen and sustainable solutions move further from reach."
"If there was a military solution to security in Yemen, Saudi Arabia would have emerged victorious in its conflict a decade ago, and the Biden administration would have halted the Houthis' targeting of shipping in the Red Sea last year," he continued. "Of course, there isn’t a military solution in Yemen, which makes it all the more befuddling that the Trump administration thinks it can bomb the Houthis into submission when this approach has been tried and failed repeatedly."
"Secretary Hegseth tweeting at Iran and threatening 'CONSEQUENCE' for its ties with the Houthis won't alter these dynamics, and risks leading the U.S. into far more damaging blowback against a more capable adversary," Costello stressed. "The U.S. and Iran need to resolve security challenges through diplomacy, not threats and military escalation. This is true on the nuclear issue, where we encourage the U.S. and Iran to return to negotiations as soon as possible. The pace that they have set on negotiations has been difficult to sustain, but not impossible."
"With sufficient will, the negotiations can reach the finish line and avert the risks of a disastrous war and Iranian weaponization of its nuclear program," he added. "Likewise, the U.S. should halt its backfiring bombing campaign in Yemen and find a way to bring all the relevant actors to the negotiating table—simultaneous with efforts to restore a cease-fire in Gaza that frees the remaining hostages and ensures urgent aid for the devastating humanitarian crisis on the ground."
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House GOP Tries to Protect Netanyahu From ICC With Rules Package
"How did a bill to protect Netanyahu make it into the House rules package to be voted on immediately after the speaker vote?" asked one lawmaker. "Where are our priorities?!"
Jan 01, 2025
A Republican congressman known for sometimes clashing with his own party's leaders called them out on Wednesday for part of the proposed rules package that is an apparent response to a global court issuing arrest warrants for top Israeli politicians over the U.S.-backed assault on the Gaza Strip.
The GOP-controlled U.S. House Representatives for the 119th congressional session is scheduled to meet Friday afternoon to swear in members, hold a speaker election, and consider the 36-page package released Wednesday. Proposed changes include renaming or reestablishing some panels, making it harder to remove the speaker, and promoting electronic committee voting.
The rules resolution also states that once it is adopted, members shall consider a dozen bills listed at the end of the document. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) took issue with the inclusion of the eighth bill, which would impose sanctions over any International Criminal Court (ICC) "effort to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies."
The ICC issued warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif, in November. Although Israel, like the United States, is not a party to the treaty establishing the ICC, the court has jurisdiction over occupied Palestinian territories—Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Massie said on social media Wednesday: "The United States is a sovereign country, so I don't assign any credibility to decisions of the International Criminal Court. But how did a bill to protect Netanyahu make it into the House rules package to be voted on immediately after the speaker vote? Where are our priorities?!"
Massie's comments on the rules package came two days after he publicly disagreed with President-elect Donald Trump's endorsement of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to keep his job for the upcoming session, saying that "we've seen Johnson partner with the Democrats to send money to Ukraine, authorize spying on Americans, and blow the budget."
So far, at least one other lawmaker—Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)—joined Massie on Wednesday in criticizing what he referred to as a "special protection provision for Netanyahu." Like her colleague from Kentucky, the Georgia Republican took aim at the court that prosecutes individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.
"I will not support giving any credibility or power to the International Criminal Court in our House rules package," Greene said of the ICC, which has faced opposition from both Democrats and Republicans over the years. "This clause needs to be removed."
Amid speculation that the ICC would issue the arrest warrants—as it ultimately did—the House passed Rep. Chip Roy's (R-Texas) Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act with bipartisan support in June. It never received a floor vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate, though the Biden administration reportedly worked with the Israeli government in a bid to block the warrants.
Under the American Service Members' Protection Act, a 2002 law that critics call the Hague Invasion Act, Biden has the authority to "use all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release" of an American or allied person detained or imprisoned by or on behalf of the ICC. Soon, the person with that power will be Trump.
Both Biden and Trump have spoken out against the ICC warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, while a few progressive lawmakers—including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a leading critic of the Israeli assault on Gaza and the only Palestinian American in Congress—have welcomed them and called out the U.S. government for providing billions of dollars in weapons to Israel.
"The International Criminal Court's long overdue decision to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity signals that the days of the Israeli apartheid government operating with impunity are ending," Tlaib said in November. "Our government must urgently end our complicity in these violations of human rights and international law."
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US Lawmakers Renew Call for Biden to Drop Charges Against Julian Assange
"The bottom line is that journalism is not a crime," said Rep. Jim McGovern. "The stakes are too high for us to remain silent."
Nov 09, 2023
Imploring the Biden administration to "not pursue an unnecessary prosecution that risks criminalizing common journalistic practices," a bipartisan group of 16 U.S. lawmakers have signed a letter dated Wednesday to President Joe Biden urging him to end the attempted extradition of Julian Assange and drop all charges against the jailed publisher.
"Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, faces multiple charges under the Espionage Act due to his role in publishing classified documents about the U.S. State Department, Guantánamo Bay, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," states the letter, which is led by Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). "He has been detained on remand in London since 2019 and is pending extradition to the U.S., having lost his appeal of the extradition order in the courts of the United Kingdom."
Assange—who suffers from physical and mental health problems including heart and respiratory issues—published materials, many of them provided by whistleblower Chelsea Manning, exposing U.S. and allied war crimes, including the "Collateral Murder" video showing a U.S. Army helicopter crew killing a group of Iraqi civilians, the Afghan War Diary, and the Iraq War Logs.
"Deep concerns about this case have been repeatedly expressed by international media outlets, human rights, and press freedom advocates, and members of Congress," the lawmakers wrote. "In April of this year... members of the House argued to Attorney General Merrick Garland that 'every day that the prosecution of Julian Assange continues is another day that our own government needlessly undermines our own moral authority abroad and rolls back the freedom of the press under the First Amendment at home.'"
The new letter has been signed by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Greg Casar (D-Texas), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Paul Gosar (R-Az.), Jesús "Chuy" García (D-Ill.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Matthew Rosendale (R-Mont.), and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
Ina message last month inviting congressional colleagues to sign the letter, McGovern and Massie explained that their goal is"to strongly encourage the Biden administration to withdraw the U.S. extradition request currently pending against Australian publisher Julian Assange and halt all prosecutorial proceedings against him as soon as possible."
McGovern said last month in a statement to The Intercept that "the bottom line is that journalism is not a crime."
"The work reporters do is about transparency, trust, and speaking truth to power," he added. "When they are unjustly targeted, we all suffer the consequences. The stakes are too high for us to remain silent."
The new letter follows last month's official state visit of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, an Assange supporter who raised the jailed journalist's case with President Joe Biden, insisting that "enough is enough." A cross-party delegation of Australian lawmakers also traveled to the U.S. ahead of Albanese's visit in an effort to pressure the Biden administration "to cease its pursuit and prosecution of Julian Assange."
Imploring Americans to put themselves in Australian shoes, former Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce told reporters after meeting with U.S. officials during the lawmakers' trip: "Imagine if the Australian government said, 'Hey you in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, as far as we're concerned, you committed a crime, and you're going to Canberra where we're going to send you to jail for 175 years,' you'd be up us like a rat up a drainpipe."
According to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Assange has been arbitrarily deprived of his freedom since he was arrested on December 7, 2010. Since then he has been held under house arrest, confined for seven years in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London while he was protected by the administration of former Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, and jailed in London's notorious maximum-security Belmarsh Prison, where he is now.
If fully convicted of the Espionage Act charges, Assange—who fathered two children with attorney Stella Morris, whom he married last year, while holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy—could be sentenced to 175 years in prison.
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