This is the Intelligence Feed.
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…
Dispatch Washington · June 18, 2026 Internal State Department emails document that U.S. diplomats have received multiple allegations of torture and inhumane conditions affecting Islamic State detainees transferred from Syria to Iraq earlier this year, according to POLITICO, which obtained the correspondence. The disclosures arrive as the Trump administration faces growing legal and diplomatic pressure…
Dispatch Washington · June 18, 2026 French President Emmanuel Macron announced at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains on June 16 that France and a coalition of allied nations stand ready to deploy a multinational maritime security mission to the Strait of Hormuz contingent on the finalization of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding signed earlier this…
Dispatch Washington · June 18, 2026 The Senate's plan to fast-track the confirmation of Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence collapsed Wednesday when President Trump posted on Truth Social that he was canceling the scheduled hearing, blocking what had been a bipartisan push to restore a lapsed federal surveillance authority. The confirmation hearing for…
Dispatch Washington · June 18, 2026 The European Union's Council of the European Union adopted a package of restrictive measures on June 16, 2026, designating Chinese entities alongside Russian and other third-country targets for support of Russia's war effort in Ukraine [1][7]. The Council adopted what it described as a "mini-package," introducing asset freeze listings…
Dispatch Washington · June 18, 2026 All 27 EU member states formally agreed on June 15 to open the first accession negotiation cluster with Ukraine and Moldova, activating a process that had been frozen for more than a year by a single member state's veto. The accession cluster was officially opened in Luxembourg during an…