The D Brief: Evolving boat-strike defense; Signalgate report, published; The $148B failure; New poll on natsec issues; And a bit more.

The White House’s boat-strike defense reportedly continues to evolve. Trump officials now say the second strike that killed two survivors of a Sept. 2 attack was intended to destroy the speedboat and not the crew, Hugo Lowell of the Guardian reported Wednesday, describing this as “the firmest legal ground” to base the attacks, which numerous lawmakers and critics have said appear to have been either murder or a war crime. (Former Justice Department attorney Joyce Vance wrote Tu