Voters in Arizona's 8th congressional district will pick their candidates Tuesday for an April 27 special election to replace Rep. Trent Franks (R), who resigned in December after it emerged that he asked two staffers to have a child for him and his wife, through nebulous methods, for $5 million. The suburban Phoenix district is solidly Republican — President Trump won it by 21 points in 2016 — but both of the GOP frontrunners have their own scandals, and some Republicans are worried. Former state Sen. Debbie Lesko (R) is accused of illegally donating $50,000 from her state Senate account to a PAC supporting her congressional campaign, but most of the attention is on the sexting scandal involving former state Sen. Steve Montenegro (R).
Montenegro, a married father and a Christian minister, acknowledged last week that a former Senate aide had sent him a topless photo as part of a months-long exchange of salacious text messages. An attorney for the aide, Stephanie Holford, said Holford had sent several nude photos to Montenegro. The candidate initially denied the claims, but after several newspapers printed excerpts from the text exchange, he told the Washington Examiner that he had not solicited the topless photo and "did not have any inappropriate relationships with this woman."
Despite the sexting scandal, Montenegro may well win, as an estimated 75 percent of voters in the district had already mailed in their ballots by the time the scandal broke last week. And if he does win the GOP primary, "it could be Alabama all over again," Shiree Verdone, who ran Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) 2010 Senate race, tells Politico. "Deep down, I'm worried because I don't want this to be another Roy Moore situation." Dr. Hiral Tipirneni, an emergency room physician backed by former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D), is expected to beat fellow political newcomer Brianna Westbrook for the Democratic nomination, but even with the scandal, whichever Democrat wins faces an uphill battle. Peter Weber
Eleven Americans were injured in Iran's recent missile strike on the Al Asad Air base in Iraq, which President Trump and the Pentagon previously said resulted in no injuries.
The military confirmed Thursday that 11 Americans were treated for concussions after Iran last week struck two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops, The New York Times reports. "While no U.S. servicemembers were killed in the Jan. 8 Iranian attack on Al Asad air base, several were treated for concussion symptoms from the blast and are still being assessed," a United States Central Command spokesperson told the Times.
Trump last week said "the American people should be extremely grateful and happy," as "no Americans were harmed" in the attack. The attack on the two bases came in response to a Trump-authorized U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
CNN notes that "concussions are not always apparent immediately after they've been suffered," and a defense official told CNN that the Pentagon previously indicating that there were no injuries "was the commander's assessment at the time" but "symptoms emerged days after the fact, and they were treated out of an abundance of caution."
With this in mind, CNN's Jim Sciutto observed that "the crux" of the story "is not the Pentagon mislead," as "these injuries emerged only after the fact," but rather "that the Iranian missile strike was a nearer miss than advertised." Brendan Morrow
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, led Friday prayers at a mosque in Tehran on Friday for the first time since 2012, trying to rally support among intertwined crises facing his government. On the foreign front, punishing U.S. sanctions have harmed Iran's economy and the Trump administration's killing of Iran's top general brought the U.S. and Tehran to the brink of war. Domestically, Iranians already angry over a hike in fuel prices took to the streets this week to demand justice and accountability for the Revolutionary Guard's downing of a Ukrainian jetliner, killing 176 people, most of them Iranian.
In nationally broadcast comments from inside the Mosalla mosque, Khamenei, 80, said the missiles fired on the Ukrainian jet were a "bitter accident" and defended the Revolutionary Guard, which reports directly to him. "Our enemies were as happy about the plane crash as we were sad," he said. "Happy that they had found something to question the Guard and the armed forces." He called President Trump, who has been encouraging the antigovernment protests, a "clown" who is only pretending to support Iran's people and would just as soon "push a poisonous dagger" into their backs.
Khamenei also addressed the missile strikes on two Iraqi bases hosting U.S. forces, calling the a "slap on the face" to the U.S. "The fact that Iran has the power to give such a slap to a world power shows the hand of God," he said, but pushing the U.S. military out of the Middle East would be the "real punishment" for America's "cowardly" killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, highlighting Soleimani's efficacy in battling the Islamic State. He added that the killing showed America's "terrorist nature."
"Leading Friday prayers in the capital is a symbolically significant act usually reserved for times when Iran's highest authority wishes to deliver an important message," BBC News reports, citing Mehdi Khalaji at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Peter Weber