White House Postpones Briefing Congress on Iran Strikes

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Trump administration on Tuesday postponed classified briefings for members of Congress on the recent U.S. strikes against Iran, fueling outrage among Democrats that President Donald Trump has yet to share key details of the operation with the legislative branch.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate had been told there would be closed-door information sessions for them Tuesday, in the aftermath of the strikes carried out against three Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend and the Iranian retaliatory strikes Monday on a U.S. military base in Qatar.

The briefings were to have included top White House and intelligence officials, including Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence; John Ratcliffe, the CIA director; and Gen. Dan Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Senate briefing has been rescheduled for Thursday, according to one person familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on it. Speaker Mike Johnson said the House briefing had been moved to Friday.

The delay came as a preliminary classified U.S. report suggested that the bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites did less damage than the “obliteration” that Trump has claimed, sealing off the entrances to two of the facilities but not collapsing their underground buildings, according to officials familiar with the findings.

It also followed a newly reached ceasefire brokered by Trump between Iran and Israel, which he announced before he and senior national security officials left Washington early Tuesday for the annual NATO summit in the Netherlands.

Several senior Democrats have pushed the administration to fulfill its legal obligations under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of military action and to provide a classified briefing. On Monday evening, Trump sent a short memo to lawmakers asserting that the strikes had been carried out under his constitutional authority “to protect United States citizens both at home and abroad as well as in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests.”

The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., criticized the delay.

“This last-minute postponement of our briefing is outrageous. It’s evasive. It’s derelict,” he said at a news conference Tuesday. “There is a legal obligation for the administration to inform Congress about precisely what is happening.”

Johnson, who has been quick to cede congressional power since Trump took office, said he had no problem with the delay. The “tentative plan,” he said, was for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio, who is serving as secretary of state and the national security adviser, to brief lawmakers as soon as they were available.

“The White House and the executive branch, and both of those secretaries I named, have utmost respect for our Article One authority and our chambers here, and they want the House and Senate to have all the information, and so they’re going to deliver it as soon as possible,” Johnson told reporters, referring to the part of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to declare war. “And I think that’s satisfactory to me, and it should be to all my colleagues.”

The classified briefing is seen by some lawmakers as central to the debate on Capitol Hill over Congress’ role in authorizing offensive military action. While most Republicans have backed the strikes and deferred to Trump’s judgment, consistent with their posture toward the president since his return to office in January, many Democrats have argued that deploying multiple B-2 bombers with 30,000-pound bombs to Iran without consulting Congress is a violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers.

Before the president’s memo was sent, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, described the strikes as “offensive,” apparently working to preempt an argument from the White House that the strike had been a matter of self-defense.

“The use of military force which is offensive in nature must be approved by the House and the Senate,” Jeffries said during a news conference Monday. “It’s not optional, Donald. It’s not.”

Jeffries said lawmakers had seen “no evidence to date” that the strikes were legally justified or that an “imminent threat” to the United States existed. “If the administration has evidence to the contrary, come up to present it,” he said.

Monday’s memo from Trump said the action was taken in part for the “collective self-defense of our ally, Israel,” but gave no additional details.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.