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CNN reports on the outrageous Iranian plot to murder former US government officials on American soil:

The US Justice Department announced criminal charges Wednesday against a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for allegedly trying to orchestrate the assassination of John Bolton, who served in senior national security positions during the Trump and Bush administrations.

The alleged plot was "likely in retaliation" for the January 2020 US air strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Justice Department said…

Prosecutors said Shahram Poursafi, a 45-year-old Iranian national and IRGC member, attempted to pay $300,000 to an individual in the United States to kill Bolton and said he had a "second job" for $1 million.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was also a target of the Iranian assassination plot, according to a federal law enforcement source familiar with the investigation and a source close to Pompeo. The "second job" was a reference to Pompeo, the source close to Pompeo said.

Bolton quipped to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he was "embarrassed at the low price" allegedly offered to assassinate him. But Bolton also made clear his opposition to the Biden administration’s continuing efforts to drag the US into a dangerous nuclear deal with Iran:

"I think it's quite correct to say many other Americans are in the targets of this regime. It tells you what the regime is. It tells you about its character… Frankly, from my point of view, the regime's terrorist activities are just the other side of the coin of its nuclear weapons program, and any idea this regime will adhere to its commitments on anything is just a terrible delusion."

Bolton went even further in a statement quoted in the New York Sun:

He said America "re-entering the failed 2015 Iran nuclear deal would be an unparalleled self-inflicted wound, to ourselves and our closest Middle East allies. I remain committed to making sure it does not happen."

Andrew McCarthy, a former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, analyzes the raid on former President Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago and theorizes that the Justice Department is using a search warrant based on a dispute over presidential documents to pursue a potential criminal charge against Trump for the January 6 riot. He writes:

As a prosecutable crime, I am betting the Biden Justice Department is not very interested in [the classified documents]. The DOJ is very interested, however, in the Capitol riot, and it is under intense pressure from the Democratic base to charge Trump with crimes arising out of it.

Leora Levy, a Cuban-born Jewish Republican fundraiser and activist, stunned political observers this week by pulling off a come-from-behind victory in the 3-person GOP primary race for Senate in Connecticut. The Hartford Courant reports:

“We’re making history here,” Levy said in her victory speech at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Old Greenwich. “It’s really exciting. This is just chapter one. We’ve got the longer chapter ahead. ... This has been an amazing experience for me. ... My sister and I escaped communist Cuba. ... This is our story, and our journey was tragedy and sacrifice. But it was hope at the end. And we found hope here in America. My American Dream is I am a candidate here for the U.S. Senate.”

The RJC PAC has endorsed RJC Leader Leora Levy’s campaign for Senate. You can support her by clicking here.

The RJC PAC has endorsed Marc Molinaro for Congress in New York’s 19th district. Molinaro is running in the special election on August 23 to fill the seat vacated by Democrat Antonio Delgado, who stepped down to become lieutenant governor. Molinaro, who currently serves as Duchess County Executive, will also run in the November general election as the GOP nominee to represent the new, post-redistricting version of the 19th district in the next session of Congress.

The August 23 special election will be an important test of the parties’ strength in a closely divided upstate battleground district. It is also important that Molinaro win the November election and lock this seat down for Republicans for the rest of the decade. You can help Marc Molinaro by clicking here.

Shalom Lipner details the success of Israel’s recent military operation against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Gaza. He writes:

The balance sheet after three days of battle substantiates accounts of Israel’s resounding victory over PIJ...

Tayseer Jabari and Khaled Mansour—commanders of PIJ’s Northern Gaza and Southern Gaza divisions, respectively—were targeted and eliminated, along with additional members of the organization’s top echelon. Official Palestinian sources confirmed that combatants comprised more than half of the deaths in Gaza. IDF Spokesman Brigadier-General Ran Kochav informed reporters that more civilians were actually killed by failed PIJ missile launches than by Israeli air force sorties…

Lipner goes on to praise Israel’s quick actions, which prevented violence from spreading into the West Bank or to Israel’s Arab population. Read the full essay here.

Lahav Harkov at the Jerusalem Post reports on how Israel defeated false reports about the Jabaliya explosion in Gaza that killed four children:

One of the hundreds of rockets Palestinian Islamic Jihad launched toward Israelis backfired, falling and exploding in Gaza itself. This time it was fired from a mosque, compounding the war crime of acting from civilian populations onto the war crime of attacking them. Two videos, one from Palestinian sources spread on social media and another grainy, black-and-white one from the IDF, showed what actually took place.

As Harkov reports, Israel’s public diplomacy director immediately moved into action. IDF officials quickly established that the PIJ was responsible for the children’s deaths. A coordinated media plan was implemented, providing statements and video to the world media and nipping in the bud Palestinian efforts to pin the blame on Israel for the lives lost.

David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy tweeted out a timeline for the Gaza operation that explains how and why Israel’s actions were so successful in what the IDF called Operation Breaking Dawn.

No visa for Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi

Former Senator Joe Lieberman and former US Ambassador to the UN Mark D. Wallace make the argument that President Joe Biden should refuse to grant an entry visa to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who wants to attend the United Nations General Assembly session in New York in September.

Republicans in the Senate have sent a letter to President Biden urging him to refuse the visa requests from Raisi and the Iranian delegation. The letter, initiated by Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Tom Cotton (R-AR) was also signed by Senators Rick Scott (R-FL), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Ted Cruz (R-TX).

The 'forever war' against the West

Clifford May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, writes that the US is in a “forever war” with terrorist groups like al-Qaeda as well as with state-based opponents Russia and China. There are those, he writes, who say we can’t deal with all these threats simultaneously, but we must: "[T]o survive in the jungle you must defend yourself not just against lions. The crocodiles can eat you, too." Israel, which is facing threats from Iran and terrorist groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, is in the same situation.

Zawahiri killing exposes Biden’s foreign policy contradictions

Ilan Berman examines the relationship between the Biden administration’s killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri last week with "the bankruptcy of the Biden administration’s foreign-policy agenda" and failed policies with regard to Afghanistan and Iran.

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