Today’s edition of quick hits.
* A widening crisis: “The U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran expanded into a wider international crisis on Wednesday after NATO air defenses shot down an Iranian ballistic missile headed toward Turkey, the United States sank an Iranian navy ship in international waters and several European nations deployed military assets to the region to protect their interests.”
* I’m honestly not sure if a sitting attorney general has ever been subpoenaed to testify in a congressional investigation: “The House Oversight Committee voted Wednesday to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi to answer questions over the Justice Department’s handling of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation.”
* In related news: “The Justice Department has withheld thousands of documents from the Epstein files, including FBI documents that detailed a woman’s unverified allegations of sexual misconduct against President Trump, according to a review by The Wall Street Journal. After a Journal analysis identified more than 40,000 files that appeared to be missing from documents posted to the DOJ’s website, a Justice Department spokeswoman said that ‘47,635 files were offline for further review and should be ready for re-production by the end of the week.’”
* There are U.S. military operations in Ecuador, too? “U.S. forces have launched military operations with Ecuador against ‘designated terrorist organizations’ inside the South American country, Southern Command said Tuesday. The military released no details on the operations but suggested in a statement that it was an extension of strikes carried out by the Trump administration against suspected drug trafficking organizations in the region.”
* Witkoff has a credibility problem: “President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, said Monday on Fox News that Iranian negotiators bragged to him that Iran had enough enriched uranium to make nearly a dozen nuclear bombs. … However, a Persian Gulf diplomat with direct knowledge of the talks told MS NOW that Witkoff’s description of the conversation was false.” * How the war affects the oil market: “Every day, around 80 oil and gas tankers typically pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway off Iran’s southern coast that carries a fifth of the world’s oil and a significant amount of natural gas. On Monday, just two oil and gas tankers appear to have crossed the strait, according to a New York Times analysis of shipping activity from Kpler, an industry data firm. On Tuesday, one tanker passed through.” * For all the talk about “government efficiency,” the administration sure does embrace inefficient approaches to governing: “Scrutiny by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, of large expenditures last year delayed disaster aid approval by three weeks, on average, and left hundreds of Federal Emergency Management Agency projects in limbo, according to a review by Senate Democrats of an internal government tracker.” See you tomorrow.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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