U.S. intelligence agencies had already done the groundwork needed to locate a missing colonel inside Iran, Paul Mauro said Monday, arguing the operation relied on intelligence gathered well before the mission began.

“You’ve got to collect, you collect, you collect and a lot of it sometimes you’re never going to use,” Mauro told “Fox & Friends.”

“The key is when you need it, it has to be there.”

Mauro pointed to the Maduro case, which unfolded at the behest of the Trump administration in January, noting U.S. forces’ ability to pinpoint where the Venezuelan dictator and his wife were going to be at the time in order to make an effective capture.

RESCUE EXPERT SAYS MOST DANGEROUS MOMENT COMES AFTER ‘JACKPOT’ CALL IN RECOVERY BEHIND ENEMY LINES

“They got him as they were running to a safe room without a scratch. Everybody comes out without a scratch,” he said.

“They got them as they were fleeing. That’s how detailed the messaging was, and that’s how synchronized the operation was.”

Mauro said that same level of preparation and coordination was on display in the Iran mission, where U.S. forces rescued a missing U.S. weapons systems officer from a downed F-15E following a multi-day search inside enemy territory.

TRUMP CALLS RESCUE OF DOWNED AIR FORCE PILOT AN ‘EASTER MIRACLE’

U.S. intelligence was able to act quickly to retrieve the missing colonel once his location was confirmed.

“[This] was one of those situations where the bell rang. ‘Guys, what [have] you got?’ President turns around, [War Secretary] Hegseth turns around, [and] they all talk to [CIA Director John] Ratcliffe and they say, ‘What [have] you got, director?’ and fortunately it was there.”

Mauro said the operation highlights a broader fact about intelligence work that is apparent to those working within its community: its success comes down to the people running the sources.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

“At the end of the day… it comes down to people,” he said.

“If you think that you can sit in a cubicle someplace and get everything you need to be done, that’s not how it’s going to go. You need people in country, in dangerous areas, Americans working on our behalf that you’ll never hear about… they’re running the sources so that, again, when you need it, they say, ‘My source is good.’“

Bannon, an ally of US President Donald Trump, served a four-month prison sentence after his 2022 conviction for contempt of Congress.

The United States Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Justice Department to move forward with dismissing a criminal case against Steve Bannon, a key ally of President Donald Trump, who was convicted after refusing to testify or provide documents to Congress despite being issued a subpoena.

The department’s request to drop Bannon’s case was one of ‌multiple actions it has taken that have benefited allies and supporters of the Republican president since Trump returned to office last year.

Bannon served a four-month prison sentence after being convicted in 2022 on two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to provide documents or testify to the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters.

Trump’s Justice Department, in urging the Supreme Court to toss the lower court’s decision, told the justices in court papers that it has determined that dismissing Bannon’s case “is in the interests of justice”. The department had already filed a motion to dismiss the case at the trial court level.

Evan Corcoran, a lawyer for Bannon, welcomed the Supreme Court’s action on Monday.

“It has been one battle after another for five years, but today the Supreme Court vacated an unjust conviction, and in doing so validated a fundamental rule – like oil and water, politics and prosecution don’t mix,” Corcoran said.

A dismissal would remove Bannon’s conviction from the record, but would have little practical impact because he has already served his sentence.

Who is Steve Bannon?

Bannon, 72, served as a key adviser to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and his chief White House strategist in 2017 during Trump’s first term in office before a falling out between them that was later patched up.

Bannon was released from prison a week before Trump’s victory over Democrat Kamala ‌Harris in ⁠the 2024 US presidential election.

Bannon cast himself as a political prisoner and told reporters upon his release, “I am far from broken. I have been empowered by my four months at Danbury federal prison.”

Bannon resumed hosting his “War Room” podcast.

A firebrand, Bannon helped articulate the “America First” right-wing populism and stout opposition to immigration that has helped define Trump’s presidency.

Bannon has played an instrumental role in right-wing media, promoting right-wing causes and candidates in the US and abroad.

Lawyers for Bannon raised various legal arguments to contest the subpoena, including issues related to executive privilege, a legal principle that lets a president keep certain communications private, and the congressional committee’s authority to issue the subpoena.

Trump also pardoned many people convicted in connection with the January 6 US Capitol riot, as well as several political allies facing other criminal cases related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which Trump lost to former US President Joe Biden.

HOUSTON (AP) — With the moon looming ever larger, the Artemis II astronauts raced to set a new distance record Monday from Earth on a lunar fly-around promising magnificent views of the far side never seen before by eye.

The six-hour flyby is the highlight of NASA’s first return to the moon since the Apollo era with three Americans and one Canadian — a step toward landing boot prints near the moon’s south pole in just two years.

A prize — and bragging rights — awaits Artemis II.

Less than an hour before kicking off the fly-around and intense lunar observations, the four astronauts were set to become the most distant humans in history, surpassing the distance record of 248,655 miles (400,171 kilometers) set by Apollo 13 in April 1970.

Mission Control expected Artemis II to surpass that record by more than 4,100 miles (6,600 kilometers).

Artemis II is using the same maneuver that Apollo 13 did after its “Houston, we’ve had a problem” oxygen tank explosion wiped out any hope of a moon landing.

Known as a free-return lunar trajectory, this no-stopping-to-land route takes advantage of Earth and the moon’s gravity, reducing the need for fuel. It’s a celestial figure-eight that will put the astronauts on course for home, once they emerge from behind the moon Monday evening.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen were on track to pass as close as 4,070 miles (6,550 kilometers) to the moon, as their Orion capsule whips past it, hangs a U-turn and then heads back toward Earth. It will take them four days to get back, with a splashdown in the Pacific concluding their test flight on Friday.

Wiseman and his crew spent years studying lunar geography to prepare for the big event, adding solar eclipses to their repertoire during the past few weeks. By launching last Wednesday, they ensured themselves of a total solar eclipse from their vantage point behind the moon, courtesy of the cosmos.

Topping their science target list: Orientale Basin, a sprawling impact basin with three concentric rings, the outermost of which stretches nearly 600 miles (950 kilometers) across.

Other sightseeing goals: the Apollo 12 and 14 landing sites from 1969 and 1971, respectively, as well as fringes of the south polar region, the preferred locale for future touchdowns. Farther afield, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn — not to mention Earth — will be visible.

Their moon mentor, NASA geologist Kelsey Young, expects thousands of pictures.

“People all over the world connect with the moon. This is something that every single person on this planet can understand and connect with,” she said on the eve of the flyby, wearing eclipse earrings.

Artemis II is NASA’s first astronaut moonshot since Apollo 17 in 1972. It sets the stage for next year’s Artemis III, which will see another Orion crew practice docking with lunar landers in orbit around Earth. The culminating moon landing by two astronauts near the moon’s south pole will follow on Artemis IV in 2028.

While Artemis II may be taking Apollo 13’s path, it’s most reminiscent of Apollo 8 and humanity’s first lunar visitors who orbited the moon on Christmas Eve 1968 and read from the Book of Genesis.

Glover said flying to the moon during Christianity’s Holy Week brought home for him “the beauty of creation.” Earth is an oasis amid “a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe” where humanity exists as one, he observed over the weekend.

“This is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are, and that we are the same thing and that we’ve got to get through this together,” Glover said, clasping hands with his crewmates.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.