Congress Leaders Briefed on Airstrike But Await Written Report
Congress Briefed on Strike as Democrats Demand More Consultation
(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration will give Congress a written justification of the airstrike that killed a top Iranian general, a Republican senator said Friday, amid warnings from Democrats that President Donald Trump must seek congressional authorization for direct military action against Iran.
Republican Senator James Risch, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he expects the White House to send the notification required under the War Powers Act to provide the legal rationale for the targeting of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who administration officials said was plotting an imminent attack against U.S. interests.
“This is long, long, long overdue,” Risch said of the strike to kill Soleimani. Risch, who said he spoke with an administration official about the attack, told reporters that “we had very clear, very solid information from the intelligence community that indeed there were going to be imminent attacks that could involve hundreds of people, could involve even thousands of people, all orchestrated by this person.”
Defense Secretary Mark Esper briefed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell about the strike near Baghdad, and a handful of other lawmakers also obtained briefings from the administration. Democratic leaders were informed of the action after the fact, and Republican leaders declined to say when they were briefed.
Reaction to the raid fell mostly along party lines, with Republicans hailing the president’s action to eliminate a terrorist leader and Democrats questioning whether Trump has a broader strategy or plan to deal with the aftermath. The strike also comes as Congress is in the midst of a bitter partisan debate over Trump’s impeachment by the Democratic-led House and a coming trial in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Democrats were furious that the leaders of both parties in the House and Senate as well as the top lawmakers on the intelligence committees -- together known as the “Gang of 8” -- weren’t given advance notice. An official familiar with the situation said they were being briefed by telephone on Friday.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Congress needs answers about what legal basis Trump relied on to target Soleimani and how the administration plans to avoid a larger war.
“No one should shed a tear for Soleimani,” he said on the Senate floor, but “it is my view that the president does not have the authority for a war with Iran.”
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Congress must be “fully apprised as to what happened, why it happened and what our strategy is.” He said the strike could pose “substantial dangers” and any future action directed at Iran must have the consent of Congress.
“If the president wants to take action against Iran, he does in fact need an authorization for the use of military force absent a direct attack on our forces,” the Maryland Democrat said in an interview.
Representative Steve Scalise, the second-ranking Republican in the House, said Trump’s actions so far were appropriate uses of his powers as commander-in-chief to defend the nation even without a congressional authorization. He added that Congress will have a say in what comes next.
“We can all discuss once we see more intelligence what the next steps are,” he said. “Clearly there is going to be a role for Congress.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday he expects administration officials to discuss the lethal action with the full Senate early next week.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he was briefed in advance about a potential operation against Soleimani when he was with Trump over the holiday break at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
“The intelligence was very strong that Soleimani was orchestrating chaos in Iraq at our expense and throughout the region,” Graham, a close Trump ally, said Friday on Fox News. “The president was informed of these potential attacks and he acted. This is a defensive strike to neutralize future attacks that were being planned” by Soleimani and others.
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, who was briefed on the strike by administration officials, said he was concerned about whether Trump is prepared for Iranian retaliation.
Retaliation Risk
“I have yet to be fully satisfied that the administration has a strategy,” the California Democrat said. “I think the dangers are going up not going down.”
There was no immediate sign that the U.S. military action was markedly affecting the debate over impeachment. McConnell and Chuck Schumer, the chamber’s Democratic leader, addressed both topics separately in remarks Friday.
“Now — predictably enough, in this political environment — the operation that led to Soleimani’s death may prove controversial or divisive,” McConnell said. Schumer complained Trump may have brought the U.S. closer to “an endless war” which he promised he would never do.
They remained at an impasse over the terms of a trial for Trump on two articles of impeachment -- abuse of power and obstructing Congress -- that were adopted by the House in September. Pelosi has delayed transmitting the impeachment articles to the Senate as Democrats angle for a deal to include new witnesses and documents for the trial.
Historical Precedent
Democratic Representative Gerry Connolly of Virginia said the killing of Soleimani shouldn’t affect the impeachment proceedings. He also dismissed any notion that holding the trial would undercut the commander in chief as the U.S. is confronting potential conflict with Iran.
“That’s something Donald Trump and his acolytes should have thought about when they committed impeachable offenses,” Connolly said in an interview. “Donald Trump put himself in this place. He is squarely where the blame lies.”
Republican Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, a close Trump ally, said the potential escalation of tensions with Iran should remind lawmakers there are “more important priorities” than impeachment.
“Hopefully, this jolts us to turn our attention more to our enemies who would seek to destroy us,” Meadows said.
There has never been a precisely comparable set of circumstances before in the nation’s history. But there are some parallels to the situation 21 years ago when then-President Bill Clinton had been impeached by the House and his impeachment trial was getting underway in the Senate. Then the U.S. was threatening Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic in January 1999 with airstrikes after a massacre in Kosovo.
By March 24, after the Senate acquitted Clinton, the Kosovo air war began. Clinton, however, was already facing criticism from some for not acting earlier, in ways that could have prevented Milosevic from moving troops and equipment into Kosovo to carry out the massive “ethnic cleansing.”
--With assistance from Laura Litvan, Travis Tritten and Kathleen Miller.
To contact the reporters on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net;Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.net;Steven T. Dennis in Washington at sdennis17@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Anna Edgerton
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