Mike Lee Slams ‘Un-American’ Iran Intel Briefing, Calls on Congress To Rein In Administration – By Tobias Hoonhout (National Review) / Jan 8 2020
A classified briefing on the intelligence behind Qasem Soleimani’s killing caused Senate Republicans Mike Lee and Ron Paul to excoriate the assessment, while Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio praised the intel.
Lee called the meeting “probably the worst briefing I’ve seen, at least on a military issues, in the nine years I’ve served in the United States Senate,” and while he commended Trump for showing “a lot of restraint” in foreign policy, he added that he wanted to speak to the president directly about the lack of clarity in the assessment.
“I went in there hoping to get more specifics as far as the factual, legal, moral justification for what they did,” Lee said. “I’m still undecided on that issue, in part because we never got to the details.”
“It is not acceptable for officials within the executive branch of government — I don’t care whether they’re with the CIA, with the Department of Defense, or otherwise — to come in and tell us that we can’t debate and discuss the appropriateness of military intervention against Iran. It’s un-American. It’s unconstitutional. And it’s wrong. And I hope and expect that they will show more deference to their limited power in the future.”
.@SenMikeLee
: "It is not acceptable for officials within the executive branch of government…to come in and tell us that we can't debate and discuss the appropriateness of military intervention against Iran. It's un-American. It's unconstitutional and it's wrong." pic.twitter.com/fVSE6b3EM0— CSPAN (@cspan) January 8, 2020
Continue to article: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/iran-intelligence-briefing-mike-lee-un-american-divides-republicans/
