We knew this would get ugly. A three-page letter from White House counsel Will Scharf landed on the desk of Rep. Robert Garcia, the incoming House Oversight Committee chair, with a warning that Democrats’ planned investigations of the Trump administration “may cross the line into blatant criminality.” Unlawful subpoenas, Scharf wrote, “may warrant further investigation.” That’s the sitting president’s lawyer telling the opposition party that oversight itself could be a crime.

Scharf pointed to Garcia’s election-night post (”LAWYER UP”) along with similar remarks from other Democrats, calling them “abusive and capricious threats.” The full text was published by PBS NewsHour.

But Garcia didn’t blink. “It appears Donald Trump has something to hide,” he said, adding that Congress draws its authority from Article I, not from White House permission. Oversight targets reportedly include Trump family business dealings, immigration enforcement and Epstein.

Legal experts weren’t all that impressed either. Molly Nixon of the Cato Institute called the letter an opening political salvo unlikely to ever reach a courtroom, noting the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause shields lawmakers acting in a legislative capacity. Reason covered the same skepticism, and NBC News framed it as a shot across the bow before anyone’s been served anything.

Democrats are poised to hold at least 254 House seats and 54 Senate seats, which means subpoena power arrives in January. The letter is a preview of what happens when it does—a fight over whether Congress gets to ask questions at all, with two years of divided government to settle it.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard navy says it struck Didamar Island, a small uninhabited Omani outcrop in the Strait of Hormuz, damaging radar and radio gear that helps ships navigate the world’s most important oil chokepoint. Three sources confirmed the attack to Reuters.

The detail that matters here is the island is Omani. Hitting it drags a neutral neighbor into a fight that already has CENTCOM blockading Iranian ports and escorting commercial vessels along a southern route through Omani waters. Regional oil exports are back above 80% of prewar levels, which is exactly the recovery a strike like this is designed to rattle.

According to Fox News, the strike comes as U.S. forces carry out missions to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. The U.S. Navy imposed its blockade of Iranian ports in April after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in February amid escalating tensions. The U.S. lifted the blockade in June following a temporary ceasefire agreement, but then reinstated it in July.

A three-story building in Brooklyn came down into an open excavation site Wednesday afternoon, killing at least two people and injuring more than a dozen more. Roughly 250 fire and EMS personnel responded. Helicopter footage showed crews carrying people out of the rubble on stretchers while dogs worked the pile.

The collapse sheared the wall off an adjacent three-story building, exposing apartments to open air. Several construction workers were hospitalized, and firefighters were still trying to account for everyone on the job site hours later. Department of Buildings inspectors are now checking neighboring structures.

Permit records show the lot was being developed into a nine-story mixed-use building, and the cause of the collapse is unknown. Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the street around it is closed for now and more details are expected today.