This is the Intelligence Feed.
Dispatch Washington · July 1, 2026 The Trump administration transmitted to Congress the text of a 14-point memorandum of understanding signed by President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on June 17, 2026, establishing a 60-day framework to negotiate the final terms of a post-war agreement. The MOU established a 60-day extension of the…
Dispatch Washington · June 18, 2026 The Senate Armed Services Committee has embedded provisions in its fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act that would freeze 75% of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's office travel budget unless the Pentagon complies with more than a half-dozen outstanding congressional information requests. The Senate NDAA, which the committee advanced…
Dispatch Washington · June 18, 2026 The G7 concluded its June 15-17, 2026, summit in Évian-les-Bains, France, with a joint declaration on critical minerals supply chains that sets a directional target but stops short of binding obligations. In the declaration, G7 leaders committed to reducing vulnerabilities stemming from concentrated supply chains and arbitrary trade restrictions…
Dispatch Washington · June 18, 2026 President Trump intervened before dawn on June 18 to block his own nominee's Senate confirmation hearing, derailing a bipartisan effort to seat a permanent director of national intelligence and placing the reauthorization of a critical foreign surveillance authority in doubt. In an early morning post on Truth Social, Trump…
Dispatch Washington · June 18, 2026 The Trump administration disclosed a 14-point memorandum of understanding with Iran on June 18, 2026, sparking immediate bipartisan opposition in Congress over the scope of proposed economic relief and the status of Iran's nuclear program. Administration officials read the MOU's terms aloud to reporters on a conference call as…
Dispatch Washington · June 18, 2026 Kuomintang Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun completed the Washington leg of a two-week, multi-city U.S. visit this month and found the capital largely closed to her. [POLITICO] Sources familiar with her itinerary said she failed to secure meetings with most of the congressional offices she approached, and a scheduled session with…
Dispatch Washington · June 18, 2026 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, sent letters on June 16 directly to Apple and Google demanding all records of their communications with the Department of Justice, the White House, and the Department of Homeland Security regarding the companies' removal of apps that crowdsourced…
Dispatch Washington · June 18, 2026 Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter stated publicly on June 16 that Israel will not withdraw from southern Lebanon, a declaration that directly contradicts Iranian officials' characterization of the proposed U.S.-Iran ceasefire framework and deepens a visible rift between Washington and Jerusalem [1][2]. Leiter, speaking on NPR's…
Dispatch Washington · June 18, 2026 U.S. Central Command forces have been overseeing a covert network of ship-to-ship oil transfers at the edge of the Strait of Hormuz, using aerial drones, unmanned surface vessels, and helicopters to keep Gulf crude moving through a waterway that Iran has functionally closed since late February. The operation, first…
Dispatch Washington · June 18, 2026 President Donald Trump publicly defended the memorandum of understanding reached with Iran on June 15 at the G7 summit in France, calling it "a fair deal" and "a good deal," even as some of his most senior national security principals privately questioned whether Tehran would fulfill the nuclear commitments…