Days after Iran strikes, Trump administration to brief Congress
Four Trump administration officials will brief senators Thursday afternoon on the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, as lawmakers and the White House clash over access to intelligence about the strikes.
Senate Democrats have pressed the administration for days to fill them in on the extent to which strikes damaged Iran’s nuclear program. The White House plans to limit how much classified intelligence it shares with Congress after the leak of a preliminary intelligence assessment this week undercut President Donald Trump’s claims about the impact.
The Trump administration has pushed back on the leaked Defense Intelligence Agency assessment, which found the strikes had set Iran’s nuclear program back by just months.
“This administration wants to ensure that classified intelligence is not ending up in irresponsible hands and that people who have the privilege of viewing this top-secret classified information are being responsible with it,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement Wednesday that several Iranian nuclear facilities had been “destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.” And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed the leaked assessment as “low-confidence” and cited the Israel Atomic Energy Commission’s determination that the strikes set back Iran’s nuclear program by years.
The briefing will give senators the chance to question Ratcliffe and Hegseth behind closed doors. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are also set to join the briefing. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is not expected to join.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said Wednesday that he wanted to know how much enriched uranium Iran possesses and how long it would take the country to build a nuclear weapon. He also called on the White House to “immediately undo” its plans to limit intelligence sharing with Congress.
“The administration has no right to stonewall Congress on matters of national security,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “Senators deserve information, and the administration has a legal obligation to inform Congress precisely about what is happening right now abroad.”
Democrats have fumed that the administration has not moved faster to fill in lawmakers on the strikes, but they have split on how to respond to them.
Most House Democrats voted to dismiss an effort by Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) to impeach Trump for striking Iran without consulting Congress - but 79 Democrats voted to advance it.
“Yes, it’s probably wrong for the president not to come to Congress,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California), the former House speaker, told reporters this week when asked about the impeachment effort. But “we can’t ignore what is at stake, which is our national security to make sure Iran does not have a nuclear weapon and our friendship with Israel.”
The Senate is set to vote this week on a resolution from Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) to block Trump from using military force against Iran without congressional authorization, but its prospects are uncertain after Trump helped broker a fragile ceasefire between Iran and Israel, ending the conflict at least temporarily.
No Republicans have committed publicly to voting for it. And Kaine has said he expects one Democrat - Sen. John Fetterman (Pennsylvania), an outspoken supporter of Israel - to oppose it.
Fetterman defended the effectiveness of the strikes ahead of the briefing. “To those who were ‘unimpressed’ or borderline gloating on a leak: Operation Midnight Hammer worked,” Fetterman wrote Thursday, citing comments from Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency on French radio that the centrifuges at Iran’s Fordow uranium enrichment facility were no longer operational. “I’ve been calling for and fully supported those strikes, and it made the world safer. It should transcend partisan politics.”