Good Morning, Patriots! On this day in 1972, five men were arrested inside the Watergate complex, setting off the scandal that would ultimately force President Richard Nixon from office.

Before there was Trump, there was Nixon. Both men challenged Washington's political establishment, and both left office with many supporters convinced forces far beyond partisan politics were working against them.

The Justice Department confirmed Wednesday it received a criminal referral for Jack Smith and said it "will investigate all evidence of criminal conduct." That's not a courtesy acknowledgment. That's the DOJ opening a file on the man who spent two years trying to put Donald Trump in prison.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan sent the referral to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, accusing Smith of making "intentionally false statements designed to obstruct the Committee's oversight" during closed-door testimony last December. The specific charge is straightforward. Smith testified under oath that his team never obtained the contents of any phone calls or text messages from Republican lawmakers. He said the records were "tolling records," which only capture call metadata. That answer was technically true for one subpoena. It left out the other one entirely.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley revealed last week that Smith's team had issued a separate subpoena to the National Archives that captured the actual text message contents of 44 members of Congress, including Trump-era White House staffers and Republican lawmakers. Smith never mentioned that subpoena during nine hours of closed-door testimony or four hours of public hearings. Jordan's position is that omitting facts necessary to make an answer accurate is still a false statement under federal law. Smith's lawyers, Peter Koski and Lanny Breuer, call that a "dangerous theory of criminal liability." They argue Smith answered the questions he was asked, accurately, and that the Archives subpoena simply wasn't what the committee was asking about.

Smith's team also notes they disclosed those text messages to Trump's own lawyers at the time, and nobody raised an objection then. Rep. Jamie Raskin called the referral "baseless and vindictive" and said Republicans were punishing Smith for not reading their minds. That defense would carry more weight if Smith hadn't spent years building prosecutions on exactly this kind of fine-grained factual distinction.

A congressional criminal referral carries no legal authority on its own. The DOJ decides whether to act. But this DOJ, under this administration, has shown no reluctance to pursue cases involving people who investigated the president. Watch Jordan lay out the case himself and decide whether the "I only answered what I was asked" defense holds up when you're a trained federal prosecutor who spent years doing exactly that to other witnesses.

Sources: The Western Journal · The Gateway Pundit · CBS News · AP News

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CENTCOM launched strikes against Iranian military targets for the 13th consecutive night Thursday at 6:45 p.m. ET, the same day Congress staged its most direct challenge yet to Trump's war authority and lost.

The House passed a De mocratic-sponsored war powers resolution 214-208, with four Republicans breaking ranks: Barrett, Fitzpatrick, Davidson, and Massie. The Senate killed it 47-49. Susan Collins was the only Republican to vote with Democrats. John Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote with Republicans. Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski, both previous supporters of similar measures, didn't vote. The resolution would have directed Trump to pull U.S. Forces from hostilities against Iran unless Congress formally authorized the conflict.

Trump isn't waiting for permission. After Iran attacked commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and blew up a ceasefire agreement earlier this month, he announced that any future Iranian attack on a ship would trigger the destruction of one bridge or power plant in or near Tehran, and that Iranian funds held by the U.S. Would be seized to cover all damages to ships and cargo. Wednesday, he attended the dignified transfer of four Americans killed by Iranian drones. Eighteen U.S. Service members have died since the conflict began.

The politics are getting harder. A Fox News poll out this week finds 56% of voters oppose U.S. Military action against Iran, with 40% strongly opposed. Trump's approval on Iran handling sits at 34%, his worst mark yet. Among non-MAGA Republicans, his overall approval has dropped 13 points since June to 51%, after opening his second term at 70% with that group. Sixty-four percent of voters now expect the conflict to last at least a year, up 13 points since May.

Trump keeps pushing. CENTCOM's statement Thursday described the strikes as aimed at holding Iran "accountable and diminishing threats from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to commercial shipping." Some Republican lawmakers urge him to finish the job. Others on both sides of the aisle are openly skeptical he can. The number to watch is that non-MAGA Republican approval figure: at 51% and falling, it's the group most likely to determine whether Congress eventually finds the votes to actually constrain him.

Sources: The Hill · Gateway Pundit (Senate vote) · Gateway Pundit (strikes) · Fox News

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